A strange incident in Basra - Why did British Marines shoot up Iraqi Civilians while in disguise?

[ck4829]

On September 19, 2005, British Defense Ministry Secretary John Reid stated that two British military personnel were released from a prison in Iraq, but did not elaborate on what he said and did not say why or how the two men got captured.

However, according to an Iraqi official, the two men were British Marines who earlier that day, while in Arab dress went on a shooting spree and wounded several civilians, also wounding a traffic police officer.

After the shooting spree, they fled, but were captured. Three hours later, the British forces broke into the prison and extracted the gunmen by force.

As of yet, no motive has surfaced why British Marines would go on a shooting spree against civilians while posing as Arabs.

http://rw-infopedia.pbwiki.com/False%20Flag%20Terrorism%20in%20Iraq
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/09/19/iraq.main/index.html

[Robbien]

1. Negroponte

Death squads come in all nationalities just as long as the money is green.

[malaise]

2. There were photos posted here

I wonder where they are now

[peacetalksforall]

3. There have been reports all through these war years of British and

American acts of provacation.

[Supersedeas]

4. I certainly haven't forgotten this.

[Taxloss]

5. The Basra "serious crimes unit" has been disbanded - it was corrupt through and through.

The arrest of these British soldiers was by the serious crimes unit, which we now know to have been out of control and rotten to the core. It was torturing, running death squads and protection rackets - being used as a private army, basically, killing prisoners, civilians and international troops. I would wager that the quotes in that CNN piece emanated from inside the SCU as well.

On edit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6208535.stm

[The Magistrate]

8. Indeed, Sir

The claim the two Englishmen were firing randomly on civilians rests solely on the assertion of an anonymous source connevcted with the police in a town where the police are dominated by sectarian militia adherents quite hostile to the occupation.

Undercover work, particularly surveillance, is pretty common in occupation service, and on occassion, the persons playing dress-up are rumbled by the other side. It is most likely that is what occured here, and the men shot their way out of the first attempt to capture them.

[Taxloss]

9. That's also my understanding of these incidents.

Indeed, from Rory Stewart's account of his time in Basra confirms this word near word for word.

I don't thik that these facts will deter some of the more paranoid minds out there, though.

[The Magistrate]

13. There Are Two Problems, In My View, Sir

The first is simple ignorance of what is actually involved in conducting various sorts of military and police operations, as well as various sorts of co-operative criminal endeavor. This leaves people prone to mistaking fictional accounts for factual ones, and so thinking some claims "make sense" when in fact they come about as close to reality as a Bond film does to real espionage work.

The second is a political and ideological view which holds that there is only one source of evil and wrong in the world. This requires that all bad action be somehow traced to this root source, for failure to do this would require re-assessing deeply held Manichean convictions. No exercise in torturing logic and facts will be so strenuous an exercise as re-examining a world view with an eye to admitting it is flawed and faulty and may need discarding. People can be relied on absolutely to do what takes the least effort.

[Mandate My Ass]

6. False flag ops

Those were agent provacateurs, nothing else. The fact that neither the Brits nor the Americans ever explained this after these guys were broken out of prison speaks volumes. Our military and intel agencies are inciting the sectarian bloodshed. I also believe the mosque explosion was a false flag operation. These guys have been fighting it out for years without blowing up each other's houses of worship.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. Here's some of the DU threads about this from that time:

There has never been a satisfactory explanation of this, or anything approaching satisfactory.

"Ya didn't see nuthin!" seems to have been the official word on this.

Some of the threads link news stories that aren't up any more, others are still up.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4822977

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4821897

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4830674

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4869023

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4908145

[ohio2007]

10. there was an excursion into Iran about that time

Something about a "three hour tour" by boat I believe. I could google for a link I suppose.

[ohio2007]

12. Were British SAS Soldiers Planting Bombs in Basra?

actuall, this was a Sept,2005 incident;
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00052.htm

Members of Britain's Elite SAS Forces

It appears that when on September 19 suspicious Iraqi police stopped the Toyota Cressida the undercover British soldiers were driving, the two men opened fire, killing one policeman and wounding another. But the soldiers, identified by the BBC as "members of the SAS elite special forces" (BBC News), were subdued by the police and arrested. A report published by The Guardian on September 24 adds the further detail that the SAS men "are thought to have been on a surveillance mission outside a police station in Basra when they were challenged by an Iraqi police patrol

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iraq/Story/0,2763,1577575,00.html

[gratuitous]

11. Oh you conspiracy mongers

There's a perfectly reasonable explanation, I'm sure, for a couple of those British boys to shoot up a few of those dark fellows whilst dressed in native garb. I'm thinking a lost wager on some test match, wot? And their mates, keen not to let the brown lads have a go at their betters, merely liberated the chaps with a what hey and a hearty cheerio. Rumors of break-ins and drawn weapons are undoubtedly the product of some overactive Mohammedan imagination.

Right then, Jeeves. A quick nine before afternoon tea? The very thing!