'Desert Rats' poised to enter Basra

The British Army is poised to enter the southern Iraqi city of Basra amid reports that well-armed forces loyal to Saddam Hussein were using mortars to quell a popular uprising.

Overnight, British artillery attacked Iraqi positions in the city, and the Baath party headquarters in the city was bombed and destroyed. UK forces also attacked Iraqi paramilitaries who were said to be fleeing the city.

The troops are preparing an attempt to seize the city in support of the mainly Shia Muslim population after civilians took to the streets in revolt against the authorities, reporters embedded with the 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats, said.

Tony Blair told MPs that he believes "some limited form of uprising" took place, adding: "What is absolutely clear is that once people know that Saddam's grip on power is being weakened, then there is no doubt at all that they wish to opt for freedom rather than repression."

Group Captain Al Lockwood, spokesman for the UK forces, said the city appeared to be calm this morning. Iraqi officials denied there had been any civil unrest.

In an important strategic shift, British troops had earlier been engaged in a series of military operations against pro-Saddam forces close to the city, the second biggest in Iraq, which faces a mounting humanitarian crisis compounded by water shortages after Iraqi forces, according to Allied sources, cut off electric power.

International Red Cross engineers were able to switch the power back on after British troops cleared "non-friendly" Iraqis from around the switching station, the officials said.

Confirming that there was unrest in Basra, Major-General Peter Wall, a British officer at US Central Command in Qatar, said: "It is very much in its infancy and it would be wrong to predict a rapid outcome.

"There are early indications that [a revolt] just might be started and we will be very keen to capitalise on it. We have a duty to reinforce that, but we've got to make sure we do that in a sensible way and don't do anything hotheaded that we might come to regret."

He added that elements of the Iraqi 51st Division ­ which were said by Allied forces to have surrendered ­ had returned to the city, taking up arms again. He said they may well have been coerced through the "mechanism of threats against their families".

Senior British officers at Central Command said Allied forces would not enter Basra until they were clearer about the position on the ground.

Earlier, the British Army said an official of President Saddam's Baath party was captured by the Desert Rats during a night-time raid on party headquarters, occupied by armed plainclothes forces, at Zubayr, near Basra. Twenty Iraqis were killed in the raid. Colonel Chris Vernon, an Army spokesman, said in Kuwait the official was probably "the senior Baath party guy" in Basra. The raid was part of a series of operations against elements of the Fedayeen ­ President Saddam's "martyrs' brigade ­and a group identified as the Special Security Organisation.

A Black Watch soldier died in a separate incident in Zubayr. A British tank commander died the previous day in fighting in the same area.

The original strategy had been for British forces merely to "screen" Basra to allow the Americans to advance northwards round its western flank. But British military officials acknowledged yesterday that they would launch attacks on Iraqi military and security elements in the city "as and when the opportunity arises". Col Vernon said: "We are moving into the outskirts of Basra, where our attacks will be surgical."

A military source at Central Command claimed the Iraqi fighters in Basra were few in number but were terrorising civilians in the city. He said British Army units with experience in Kosovo, Bosnia and Northern Ireland had the expertise to deal with urban operations of this type. Air Marshal Brian Burridge, the head of British forces in the Gulf, said: "When you go in and sort out an urban area you are not out to break the china. We want to win hearts and minds, but we will have to use force."

Col Vernon said forces fighting at Zubayr reported that gunmen had attacked from behind civilians that "we assume [were] being coerced". He said the 7th Armoured Brigade had been fired at by irregular forces from behind civilians. "Clearly we cannot engage the gunmen for risk of causing undue civilian deaths," he said.

British sources also said 20 Iraqi T-55 tanks had been destroyed in two separate Iraqi breakouts from the city. The first was defeated by Royal Horse Artillery. In the second engagement, 3 Commando Brigade was attacked on the Al-Faw peninsula.

At a news conference in London earlier in the day, Tony Blair said: "Basra is surrounded and cannot be used as an Iraqi base. But in Basra there are pockets of Saddam's most fiercely loyal security services who are holding out. They are contained, but still able to inflict casualties on our troops, and so we are proceeding with caution."