Under cover of darkness, facing machine-gun fire and grenades, a thousand British soldiers captured and destroyed a rogue Iraqi police unit’s torture HQ on Christmas Day.

The feared Serious Crimes Unit of Basra police, whose members were notorious for collaborating with criminal militias to murder and kidnap local people and troops, is no more.

The death squad’s stone-built compound was flattened to rubble in a spectacular early morning controlled explosion with such force that passers-by were knocked off their feet.

More than 100 prisoners, many with signs of torture such as electrical and cigarette burns and gunshot wounds to the knees and feet, were rescued.

Intelligence reports suggested that, unless troops moved in, detainees would be killed in retaliation for last week’s seizure by British forces of a senior policeman on suspicion of mass murder.

“Crimes unit?” Tane Dunlop, a British military spokesman, told Reuters. “That’s pretty much what it does, rather than prevent.”

As loved ones back home were settling into churches for Christmas Eve midnight mass, British troops launched a daring mission to destroy the rogue force. Allied commanders planned the assault as the final chapter in a two-stage operation. On Friday, seven officers from the unit were arrested, their homes surrounded by British troops with armoured vehicles using fog to give them the advantage of surprise.

One seized leader is suspected of ordering an attack on October 29 when gunmen ambushed a bus carrying 17 employees of a British-run Basra police training academy. The cleaners, a translator and trainers were murdered and their bodies dumped in what was seen as a bid to intimidate local people and challenge British forces’ authority.

The 400-strong Serious Crimes Unit, regarded by Britain as heavily infiltrated by “anti-coalition elements”, will now be replaced by a “Major Crimes Unit”. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “It’s not the name that’s important; it’s to start this thing all over again and carefully screen applicants. It’s rooting out those criminal elements.”

Late on Christmas Eve, using night-vision glasses, an overwhelming force of British troops and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) headed for the compound. Their Challenger tanks and Warrior armoured vehicles were fired upon from alleyways leading to the al-Jameat police station. The British used heavy machineguns to kill seven Iraqi gunmen.

At 2am local time (11pm GMT), with helicopters circling overhead, they began the raid to capture the station. With the rogue police leaders already removed, the troops met limited resistance from remaining officers. There was an exchange of fire but no casualties. Policemen were arrested under warrants issued by the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

The soldiers burst into the prisoners’ quarters, a large concrete-walled room with a few mats on the hard floor, crammed with men groaning in pain and fear.

The 127 prisoners, suspected criminals, found by the British received medical attention. Crushed hands and feet strongly suggested that they had been treated brutally by their interrogators. The men, many needing to be carried, were taken by the ISF to the Warren custody facility in the oil-rich southern port.

There are fears others have escaped. Some reports suggested the British had expected to find 178 detainees. Basra’s police chief, furious that the raid happened without his knowledge, said there had been 147 locked up. There was no accounting for “20 of the most dangerous of them, who have carried out bomb attacks in Basra”, he said.

Having evacuated the compound, the British ensured that it could not be used for torture again. Soldiers placed bar mines at key structural points on the building. As the morning sun bore down on Basra, the police station was blasted into pieces. A roaring blast sent up a dust cloud, the walls collapsed and a police vehicle parked at the compound somersaulted. “We used explosives to put the building beyond use so it can no longer be used by the criminal enterprise,” Captain Dunlop said. “We had clear directions from Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, and Governor Mohammad Waeli, to dissolve the unit”. The Ministry of Defence said it was unaware of any British casualties.

After yesterday’s raid, part of the wider Operation Sinbad to clean up Basra’s police, British bases in the city came under mortar attack.

Charlie Burbridge, a British military spokesman, said: “We identified the Serious Crimes Unit as, frankly, too far gone. We just had to get rid of it. For some time we’ve been talking about culling the police force. Well, this is exactly what we’ve done. We’ve removed a very significant and nasty part of the police force which has been scaring people in Basra.”

The raid was the culmination of months of intelligence-gathering in the Shia-dominated city. Troops had eye-scanned and finger-printed almost every policeman in the city.

“First, we had to have faith in the police,” Major Burbridge said. The military needed to be sure another rogue element would not fill the void left by the Serious Crimes Unit.

A new alliance between Mr Waeli, of the fundamentalist Fadila party, and the British was a crucial factor in going ahead with the raid.

Six months ago, Mr Waeli was widely seen as backing the Serious Crimes Unit in its rampage around Basra. But the Shia-led national Government put intense pressure on Mr Waeli as it realised Basra’s chaos was an embarrassment for Shia leaders.

Brigadier Mohammad al-Musawi, Basra’s police chief, nevertheless accused the British of trying to stir up trouble. General Ali Ibrahim, an Iraqi army commander, told reporters the raid was illegal. He said: “We could have solved this problem ourselves between Iraqi forces but the British overreacted.”

Secret police

It also claimed that former Nineveh police chief Major-General Ahmad Mohammad Aljiboori had controlled a personal militia of 1,400 troops, confiscated cars for personal use and detained 300 Iraqis for months without charge

Source: LA Times

Times Recommends

• Both sides blame US for worsening relations
• Stieg Larsson: losing the plot over his cash
• Odd creature paralysed by incompatible parts