IT was several hours after dark in the Basra district of Hadem, a stronghold of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, when teams of British infantrymen in Warrior armoured vehicles descended simultaneously on a number of houses.
To the background accompaniment of occasional gunfire that has become routine since the British ousted the southern city’s Ba’athist leaders, they snatched a dozen of the Shi’ite cleric’s key lieutenants.
Seven of the men were members of the now-notorious “interior affairs department” that has been accused of murdering anyone who crosses them, including Steve Vincent, an American freelance reporter. Three were also members of the local police. It was no surprise to intelligence agents that components for a new type of roadside bomb were found during the co-ordinated raids last month.
Only a few hours earlier in London, Tony Blair had virtually accused the Iranians of helping the Shi’ite militias to murder British soldiers with armour-penetrating “shaped charge” bombs triggered when a vehicle breaks an infrared beam across the road.
The arrests are now known to have marked the start of a crackdown on the Iraqi police that British officials believe is an essential precondition to cutting back the number of British troops in southern Iraq.
Senior Whitehall officials signalled last week that having resisted calls to pull British troops out of Iraq, the emphasis was now on what they preferred to call a phased withdrawal.
A huge purge of the Iraqi police is regarded as the first stage of an exit strategy expected to see British forces reducing their presence in Iraq from the middle of next year.
The timing would be no accident. British military doctrine, rewritten last year in the light of cash restraints imposed by the Treasury, states that the armed forces cannot run two medium-level operations at once.
Yet in May, when the number of British troops in Afghanistan will rise to more than 4,000, that is precisely what will happen. “It is a classic case of overstretch,” a defence official said.
The newly formed Special Reconnaissance Regiment, many of whose members learnt their tradecraft infiltrating illegal organisations in Northern Ireland, has been on the streets of Basra for two months identifying “rogue elements” in the Iraqi police.
The training of police officers is also being revamped amid serious concerns, expressed in a document seen by The Sunday Times, that “militia activity, political activism and tribal affiliation within the Iraqi police service are recognised obstacles to reform”.
The plan is to replace the militia’s allies inside the police with officers from outside the area, a move that worked well in Islam Qala, near Herat, in western Afghanistan, where similar problems occurred. Muthanna, in the southwest of Iraq, and Maysan, home to the Marsh Arabs and the troubled town of Al-Amara, are likely to be the first to be handed over to Iraqi security forces by the end of next year.
The aim is to cut the number of British troops in southern Iraq by 5,000 from the current total of about 8,500, with the remaining forces moving back to five or six strategically placed camps.
The bases will be home to provincial reconstruction teams, following a model set in Afghanistan. British troops will keep a low profile, leaving policing to Iraqi forces.
There are signs that this policy is already in place, with British troops increasingly remaining in their barracks and venturing out only by Warrior armoured personnel carrier.
Officials say plans for withdrawal will be put on hold if there is a surge in violence. But it is likely to be implemented in step with the Americans. The “w” word, withdrawal, is deemed too sensitive to use in talks with the Americans, a senior British defence official said. The preferred phrase was “transitional handover”.
Another defence official said: “The Americans are terrified we will be ready to withdraw before them and then the rest of the coalition, the Australians and other countries, will disappear and they will be left on their own — very embarrassing for Bush.”
The American president is under enormous political pressure to show some tangible progress in Iraq. Calls from former supporters of the war for an exit strategy intensified last week when Republicans in the Senate backed a resolution demanding that 2006 “should be a period of significant transition to full sovereignty”.
Some senior Republicans are close to mutiny and political tensions may be increased by an official investigation into a Pentagon team under Douglas Feith, the former policy chief, that built the case against Saddam in the build-up to war.
The quieter provinces east of Baghdad are regarded as the ideal place for Americans to start pulling out their forces. Ultimately, the Americans would like to withdraw from the heavily fortified green zone in the heart of Baghdad, one of the most powerful symbols of US occupation.
British and American politicians and officials stress that “conditions” must be met before troop reductions can begin, but there is little sign on the ground that events are moving in the right direction. Yesterday five American soldiers were killed and five wounded in two bomb attacks near Beiji in northern Iraq.
Earlier a suicide attacker drove his car into a Shi’ite funeral procession in the village of Abu Saida, north of Baghdad, killing at least 36 people. At least 13 people were killed by car bomb in a market in the Diyala Bridge area in the south of the city.
Additional reporting: Ali Rifat, Baghdad
