Footage was released today of the arsenal said to be carried by two British commandos captured after exchanging fire with Iraqi police and rescued by UK troops who used armoured vehicles to break into Basra's jail last night.

Among the weapons in footage shown by the al-Iraqiya television channel was an anti-tank gun and a light machine gun with half a dozen magazines.

The BBC reported from Baghdad today that the two men were members of the Special Air Services regiment, the UK's elite special forces commando unit. There was no official confirmation of that. The men were dressed in Arab clothing and driving a civilian car when Iraqi police tried to stop them.

The men's covert mission and the forceful British reaction to their arrest has provoked popular anger in Basra, a southern city which has been relatively calm compared to Baghdad and Sunni areas of central Iraq controlled by American forces.

The British men had been handed over to a local Shia Muslim militia, apparently to use as hostages to force the release of two militia leaders. They were tracked down to a nearby house and rescued by UK forces in a follow-up operation.

In today's footage, shot before the rescue mission, the two soldiers appeared nervous as their captors filmed them beside equipment and disguises, including wigs and Arab headdresses, said to belong to them.

One of the soldiers, who appeared to be in his thirties, had spots of blood on his white T-shirt. At one point his colleague, wearing a blue T-shirt, put on one of the thick black wigs and a headdress lying on a table, apparently at the instruction of a policeman who joked that he was a Shia descendant of the Prophet Mohammed.

Haider al-Ebadi, an adviser to Ibrahim Jafari, the Iraqi Prime Minister, called last night's UK rescue mission "a very unfortunate development". But the Iraqi Government released a statement denying that there was any breakdown in relations between Baghdad and the British Government after the arrest of the two soldiers.

"In response to recent events in Basra, the Iraqi government wants to clarify that there is no ’crisis’ - as some media have claimed - between it and the British government," the statement said. "Both governments are in close contact and an inquiry will be conducted by the Iraqi ministry of the interior into the incident. We will await the outcome of that inquiry. In the meantime we urge all sides to remain calm."

After using Warrior armoured fighting vehicles to burst into the Basra jail, the British troops searched the jail from "top to bottom" before forcing guards to disclose the whereabouts of the men at gunpoint. The two soldiers, who had been working undercover, were traced to a nearby house from which they were rescued in a follow-up operation.

The soldiers were said to be safe and well today but yesterday's dramatic scenes of mob violence in a city once considered to be among the more peaceful in Iraq have raised serious questions over the deterioration of relations between British forces and the local police.

Ministry of Defence officials today denied reports from the Iraqi ministry that 150 prisoners escaped during the dramatic raid on the prison which involved ten Warrior armoured vehicles and helicopter back-up.

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