Iraq, la guerra continua

Da The Guardian, ieri:

AN EXPLOSIVE SITUATION

The Telegraph gives almost half of its front page to the picture. "A British soldier leaps from a firebombed Warrior on a failed mission to rescue two Special Forces men jailed for killing a local policeman," splashes the Mail. "Last night they were freed when our tanks smashed their way into a Basra prison. Just another surreal dayin Iraq."

What exactly happened at the prison is a matter of some dispute. Most of the papers agree that tanks were used to break down the walls. But the Telegraph quotes a Ministry of Defence spokesman who denied these reports. "We would never orchestrate or authorise a jailbreak," he said. The tank used to collect the two SAS men "might" have accidentally knocked into a wall as it reversed.

But Iraqi officials said "half a dozen" tanks had been used to
demolish the walls and described the operation as "barbaric
aggression", according to the Guardian. Dozens of other prisoners are reported to have escaped.

"We believed we had no other option," a "military source" told the Times last night. "The safety of our two soldiers was our priority.
The ferocity of the earlier clashes showed how determined some local groups were to get their hands on these two men."

The Sun says the two - pictured with their hands bound and their faces pixellated to conceal their identities - were arrested after they "opened fire on a police patrol" approaching them, killing one Iraqi policeman and wounding three others. An angry crowd started to lob petrol bombs at British army vehicles, chanting "Murderers out".
Whether the two incidents were connected is not altogether clear: the Guardian reports that senior British officials believe the attack on the Warrior had been planned for days.

"Television footage showed the Warrior engulfed in flames," says the
Telegraph. "The turret hatch opened and a soldier, his clothes and
helmet on fire, scrambled out under a hail of missiles." The soldiers
injured yesterday are described as "stable".

Chris Ryan, a former SAS soldier interviewed by the Sun, is bemused.
"I would say there was no need for this. If they have a good
relationship with the local police, they could just go and ask for
the two SAS men to be handed back. But there could be other factors
at work here. Surveillance units are being used because it is
believed a lot of Iraqi police are giving information to criminals
and terrorists. These soldiers may have been putting police under
surveillance to see if they had links to terror organisations."

The Times fingers Iran, reporting on page three that the country is
sending "weapons and encouragement" to Shia militias in Basra and
elsewhere.

"I have changed my mind about Iraq," writes Max Hastings in the Mail.
"The American and British invasion seemed disastrously misconceived.
However, once we were committed, it seemed essential to stay the
course, to create a viable government before we quit. Today, however,
it seems almost impossible to believe that our open-ended presence is
achieving anything. As Sir Menzies Campbell and Tim Collins urged
yesterday, it is time to start talking about when and how we go."