Sports Calendar

The largely unreported clashes that ensued were of exceptional ferocity. During August alone, British soldiers in Amara fired more than 40,000 rounds of ammunition.

Last week, as they prepared to return home after a seven-month tour of duty in Amara, members of Y company of the PWRR described the horror of the combat and their simple relief to be escaping alive.

“We were absolutely pummelled, really shot to pieces,” said Corporal Al Horn. “We still don’t know how people didn’t get hit.”

Back in July, most of the PWRR’s soldiers believed they had seen the worst after three months of fighting in Amara, a lawless city of 350,000 people close to the Iranian border.

A truce was shattered in early August when US forces began their assault on Mahdi positions in Najaf’s Imam Ali mosque, one of the most revered shrines of Shi’ite Islam. Hundreds of fighters rallied to al-Sadr’s banner in a new uprising.

Most of the fighting was in the centre of Amara around a British outpost known as CIMIC house, defended by little more than 70 members of Y company supported by the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

The first attack came on August 5. A memorial service had just finished for a Y company soldier killed in a road accident and the men were eating their lunch. At 1.37pm there was a loud explosion as a mortar shell hit a roof. The men dived for cover.

For day after day the onslaught continued. The men were attacked with 595 mortar rounds (in a total of 200 attacks) and with machinegun and sniper fire, and had to repel eight direct assaults on their walls. “It was pure war,” said Major Justin Featherstone, 33, the company’s commander.

Hundreds of members of the Mahdi militia were meanwhile taking to the streets and captured all but two police stations.

Maer responded by dispatching a column of Warriors from a base outside Amara to reinforce CIMIC. Sergeant Dave Perfect, who commanded one vehicle, said he was under constant attack as he entered the city. “The ambush they prepared was absolutely staggering,” he said.

The British forces tried to calm the situation but by August 10, after an appeal from the city’s beleaguered police chief, they had decided a show of force was needed — hence Operation Hammersmith and the Spectre, whose 25mm Gatling guns alone can fire 1,800 rounds per minute. Hundreds of Mahdi militia were engaged; many were killed.

As the British moved across the city, the fiercest fighting was in pitch darkness when the soldiers found it hard to see where the fire was coming from. Rocket-propelled grenades (RPGS) produced a steady toll of casualties.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Henning Mankell: ‘If Wallander was alive, I wouldn’t be a friend of his’
• Secret society's skull and crossbones for sale
• Nigerian leader vanishes after medical treatment