In the news...

Britain frees soldiers jailed by Iraqi police
Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times
September 20, 2005

BAGHDAD -- Violent clashes erupted Monday between Shiite militia and British soldiers in the southern city of Basra, after British tanks stormed a local jail to free two of their commandos detained earlier in the day by Iraqi police.

The daylong violence in Iraq's second-largest city raised troubling questions about the relationship between the nominal allies in what once was considered a relatively safe area of the country.

The clashes, which involved members of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's army, apparently began when the two undercover British commandos fired on Iraqi police, who took them into custody.

Iraqi police cars circulated downtown, calling through loudspeakers for the public to help stop British forces from releasing the two. Heavy gunfire broke out and fighting raged for hours, as crowds swarmed British forces and set at least one armored vehicle on fire.

The tanks bore down on the jail, knocking down a wall before the men were freed -- along with dozens of other detainees who took advantage of the chaos to escape, according to local reports and news agency accounts.

Two Iraqis were reportedly killed in the clashes, and several British soldiers were wounded.

In London, authorities said the two commandos were released after negotiations. But the BBC quoted British defense officials as saying a wall was demolished when British forces went to "collect" the men.

The provincial governor, Muhammad Walli, told news agencies the British assault was "barbaric, savage and irresponsible."

Growing tension

Monday's violence underscored the increasing volatility of Basra. Tension has been growing between British forces in the city and Shiite police and militias that operate there.

The clashes followed the discovery Monday of the body of Fakhr Haidar al-Tamimi, 38, a journalist who worked for local TV and radio, as well as the New York Times, the Guardian in London, National Geographic and other publications, according to the New-York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Basra, a city of 1.5 million, is heavily under the control of Shiite political parties and fighters of the Badr militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Shiite religious party that leads Iraq's government.

Though Basra has not suffered the same level of violence as other cities in Iraq, residents say peace has come at a cost. Armed militiamen rule the streets, enforcing perceived infractions of Islamic law with beatings and even killings, residents say. In the once cosmopolitan city, women can no longer go unveiled on the streets, and physicians have been beaten for treating female patients.

Citizens and authorities allege that Badr fighters have infiltrated police forces and are carrying out abuses under the guise of police authority. Rivalry also runs strong between those militia fighters and the militia of Al-Sadr.

Attacks on Westerners -- once a rare event in Basra -- have targeted British and U.S. diplomatic convoys in recent weeks and killed at least eight Britons and Americans.

Britain is the second-leading contributor of foreign troops to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, with 8,500 troops compared with 140,000 Americans.

Roundup of events

In other developments Monday:

• Across Iraq, militant attacks killed 24 police and civilians and wounded 28 others.

• In a report in the Independent newspaper, Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi said $1 billion has been stolen from his ministry. The money allegedly disappeared under the interim government of Ayad Allawi.

• Al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi purportedly issued a vow pledging not to attack followers of Al-Sadr and other Shiite leaders opposed to the U.S.-backed government.

• In the holy city of Karbala, an estimated 3 million pilgrims attended a major Shiite festival in defiance of insurgent declarations of all-out sectarian war.

• A court in Baghdad sentenced one of Saddam Hussein's nephews to life in prison for funding the insurgency and bomb-making.

• A lawyer for Army Pfc. Lynndie England said she will abandon her earlier courtroom strategy and fight charges that she was a key participant in detainee abuse by guards at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The 22-year-old reservist, who appears in a series of graphic photos taken inside Abu Ghraib, was to go on trial today at Fort Hood, Texas, on seven counts of mistreating prisoners.

• World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said he is looking into putting staff members back in Iraq -- two years after a bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad led the lending institution to pull them out.

The Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this report.
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A team of U.S. scientists has found the emotionally impaired are more willing to gamble for high stakes and that people with brain damage may make good financial decisions, the Times newspaper reported Monday.

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And you thought you were having a bad day...

"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," (fire official Henry) Barton said.

"I've been firefighting for over 35 years and I've never come across anything like this," he said.