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4:53am (UK)
Troops Offer Guns Amnesty as Looters Run Riot
By Tom Whitehead, PA News, in Basra
British troops in Basra were today offering a gun amnesty as part of their efforts to restore calm to Iraq’s second city.
Locals were being urged to turn over their weapons as troops worked to bring back law and order.
Criminals, some who fled prisons as Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed, were being blamed for the heavy looting that has struck the southern city, terrifying residents.
But it was the high number of guns in circulation that was causing most concern.
An “amnesty pit” has been created close to one British compound in the hope that residents would dump their firearms.
Captain Cliff Dare, 35, of 3 Commando Brigade Engineer Group, said: “An amnesty is essential.
“Iraq has a culture of weapons. There are a lot of them around, most held quite legally.
“If we want to give the new Iraq a chance these weapons have to be taken out of circulation.”
The most common ones are the Russian-designed RPG (rocket propelled grenade launcher) and the AK 47 automatic rifle.
Similar appeals were held in other towns freed of Saddam, including Umm Qasr where hundreds of firearms were handed over or seized by British troops during patrols.
Meanwhile, explosives experts from 21 Field Squadron and 42 Commando assault engineers have destroyed a huge cache of seized Iraqi military hardware.
Hundreds of mortar shells, RPGs, hand grenades and ammunition rounds were detonated in two controlled explosions that could be heard across much of Basra.
Senior officers have warned that looters could be held as prisoners of war and one Iraqi was stoned to death by locals for stealing from shops.
Coalition forces have approached an unnamed tribal leader to help form a new ruling council in the city with a population of 1.5 million by the end of the week.
They are reported to have said that members of Saddam’s Baath Party hierarchy could form part of the new body.
But doctors at Basra Teaching Hospital have expressed their anger at British forces.
“We thought when they entered the city, they would prepare an administration to take control,” said Dr Janan Peter al-Sabah, chief of surgery.
“We don’t need food or water. What we lack is safety and protection,” he told Tini Tran of the Associated Press.
Yesterday many doctors stayed at home to protect their families from looters. Only 50 of the 150 turned up for work.
Captain Jodie Smith, of the Royal Logistic Corps, told Keith Harrison, of the Express & Star, that the stoning incident, thought to have taken place in the north of the city, an area controlled by the Black Watch regiment, would be “thoroughly investigated”.
“Looting is seen as a threat to our mission and we will do all we can to stamp it out, but we are not a police force,” she said.
“No one has been arrested so far, but we may start holding people as prisoners of war if it carries on.”
She added: “Our main effort at the moment is to get humanitarian aid to the people and we believe that looting will die out rapidly as normality returns.”
A British Army spokesman said the man stoned to death was one of four caught stealing.
Fighting is continuing in pockets of the city, which allied forces took control of on Monday.
They have left routes heading north open to allow an escape route to Saddam hard-liners who are still active.
“We wanted to give them a way out, rather than leave them with no option but to dig in and fight to the end,” one British officer told Harrison.
British forces have begun delivering food and water, despite looters disrupting aid distribution yesterday.
Royal Engineers were also looking at renovating the existing water system and providing a more reliable supply.
Work was also being carried out on the power supplies which run intermittently.
Richard Edwards of the Western Daily Press reported that policing is still all but non-existent in large parts of the city and the fearful middle classes believe they may be the mobs’ next target.
Margaret Hitchcock, a Plymouth-born woman who married an Iraqi and has lived in Basra for the past 30 years, said they were desperate for help.
She told Edwards: “We have to stop this stealing. This is not Iraq and these are not true Iraqis doing this.
“We are terrified in our homes, more terrified than when we were being bombed.”
But Captain Justin Prowse, a spokesman for 7th Armoured Brigade, who will soon assume complete authority for the city, said things were coming under control.
“Basra is a place the size of Birmingham, a huge area to patrol,” he said. “But I feel we are now setting up the structures and security required.”
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