Tension in Basra as British forces arrest Iraqi police

In Basra, south Iraq, one woman was killed and three persons were injured in a bomb explosions yesterday in a market in al-Qubla quarters. Witnesses said that one man went out of a police car and implanted the bomb.

The explosion came at a time when tension increased in Basra following acts of detentions carried out by the British forces said to be at the request of the Iraqi ministry of interior. The acts of detention covered 16 persons with the majority of them police men described as the most corrupt, and they are linked to kidnapping and killing operations. So far the British forces released seven of them.

These acts of detention pushed the governor of Basra Muhammad al-Waeli to threaten of suspending all forms of cooperation with the British forces.

Al-Waeli also asked the British forces to hand over the security missions to the Iraqi forces, and to remain outside the city, calling for demonstrations tomorrow, Sunday, in front of the British Consulate in Basra, in protest of what he called random acts of killing.