British army proves mettle in fights with Iraqi soldiers

UMM QASR, Iraq -- Striking before dawn, British tanks and infantry staged a lightning raid into besieged Basra on Saturday, destroying five Iraqi tanks and blowing up two statues of Saddam Hussein before withdrawing without casualties.

The strike was the first thrust into the city confirmed by British officers, and it and other limited attacks around Basra could be a preview of how coalition commanders might deal with a siege of Baghdad.

The move also was further evidence that British troops fighting for control of Iraq's far south are not here just as window dressing in the war to topple Saddam.

The 30,000 British soldiers and marines in the field have pedigrees that stretch to El Alamein, Waterloo and earlier and aren't taking a back seat to an American ground force about five times larger.

British troops have fought some of the toughest battles so far, mixing up pinpoint raids in urban areas with the pummeling of Iraqi armored forces daring or desperate enough to risk a head-on fight in the open.

On Thursday, 12 Challenger tanks from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards battled an equal-sized force of Iraqi T-55s near Basra, Iraq's second-biggest city where 1,000 or so Saddam loyalists are holed up among 1.5 million people widely unfriendly to the regime. The Iraqi force lost two tanks and saw two infantry positions overrun.

Back to Waterloo

In an army that thrives on obscure regimental histories and traditions, the Scots Dragoon Guards have one of the proudest, wearing beret badges resembling the eagle standard of Napoleon's army, which they engaged in a suicidal cavalry charge at Waterloo in 1815.

Having long ago given up their gray war horses and sabers, they now fight from Challenger II tanks, using some of the most sophisticated aiming systems in the world to hit the aging Iraqi tanks while moving at 40 mph.

Overhead, the Royal Air Force has been flying about 10 percent of the 1,000-plus sorties flown by the coalition each day, employing their own aerial refueling aircraft, Tornado fighter-bombers and Harrier jump jets.

Asked if the British, who are operating under overall control of U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway, would need reinforcements to take and hold the south, one of their officers bristled.

"We've got quite enough troops to do the job, 26,000 troops," Col. Chris Vernon, the army spokesman in Kuwait City, told journalists. "The British army is a professional army that's probably second technologically only to the Americans."

U.S. Marines and Royal Marines surged into the Faw peninsula at the outset of the war. Though they would have preferred to avoid urban fighting, they needed to seize Umm Qasr, Iraq's main deep-water port, as soon as possible to open it up for ships bringing in humanitarian aid.

The city was taken after five days of hard street-to-street fighting. Iraqi militiamen sniped from windows, while others feigned surrender, then opened fire when troops came up to take them into custody.

Military officers say the area is largely secure now, and the harbor is being cleared of mines. British troops patrol the dusty streets, walking in pairs on both sides of the street, a sight familiar from the days of urban guerrilla warfare in Northern Ireland. Gurkhas, armed with assault rifles and their intimidating 13-inch kukri knives, help guard the port.

The most powerful British unit, the 7th Armored Brigade, has been at the gates of Basra since midweek. Its soldiers are staging quick, sharp attacks on Iraqi forces that took refuge in the city and reportedly have attacked civilians trying to escape.

The brigade is descended from the "Desert Rats" that defeated Nazi Germany's Desert Fox, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, in the North African desert in World War II.

On Tuesday, soldiers from the brigade raided the house of a senior official of Saddam's ruling Baath party on the outskirts of the city and took him prisoner, leaving 20 dead bodyguards.

"He was sitting there in his little building, thinking what a good morning, when whap! we're in, whap! we're out, and 20 of them are gone," Vernon said. "That would have sent a shock wave through them."

British forces are targeted by Iraqi artillery in the city center, but officers said they limit their retaliatory fire, shooting only at military targets they can see to avoid inflicting civilian casualties.

"We will play it as we see it, on our terms, seizing opportunities tactically as we see it," Vernon said.

He refused to give a figure on how many Iraqis had been killed so far. U.S. military officials also do not give hard figures.

"A war-fighting army does not go along adding up how many people it kills," Vernon said. "It kills them, it buries them, and it takes prisoners of war."