Citizens want order as looting in Basra begins to subside

BASRA’S citizens were last night turning their thoughts to re-establishing order in their city, with signs that the frenzied looting was subsiding.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced to the House of Commons that he was considering dispatching police advisers to help restore calm.

However, locals have told British soldiers that they want only minimum help from coalition forces, and some have even urged the troops to pull out.

After days of looting, there is not much left to take in the city of 1.5 million and all the hotels which were not bricked up before the trouble began have reportedly been emptied.

Sky News’s Simon McCoy, in Basra, said that in the last 24 hours the main water pumping station that serves the centre of the city was looted.

“It was attacked by the very people screaming that they want water,” he said. “So the coalition forces are saying they’re not helping themselves at this stage.”

With no authority in place to fill the void left by the collapse of the local Ba’ath party, there is still the spectre of lawlessness and revenge attacks on the streets.

Criminals, some who fled prisons as Saddam Hussein’s regime crumbled, are being blamed for the chaotic scenes which have taken place since allied forces took control of the southern city on Monday.

British troops have offered a gun amnesty for residents to dump their firearms in the hope that it would help restore calm.

However, Lieutenant Iain Lamont and Sergeant Ted Land, of 59 Independent Commando Squadron, Royal Engineers, said the people of Basra want to restore law and order with minimal help from coalition forces.

After meeting with emerging community leaders of South-East Basra, Lt Lamont, aged 26, from Glasgow, said: “They are grateful for what the British have done, but now they want to get on and do it themselves.

“There is a lot of dialogue and they were very forthcoming about how they want to run the community and how they feel it should be policed. While they are desperate for our support in the initial period they want to establish their own systems of security.”

One Iraqi resident, Moaed Abd Alih, a 23-year-old student, went further and called for the British to leave.

“We need the British to pull out now. They have got rid of Saddam to let us live our lives in peace. We want to rule ourselves.”

At a British aid distribution point in Zabiyr, he spoke for 300 men, women and children who shouted at him to get their points across.

“Now they have got rid of Saddam,” he said, “they have no reason to fight against the Iraqi people.

“We have nothing. We have no power, no work and no lives. There is not enough to eat or drink and our money is worthless.”

Despite food hand-outs and the delivery of more than 100,000 litres of water to his town, he insisted: “No-one does anything to help us. The British make things worse. The water is not clean. It will make the children ill. What use is that?

“When Saddam was in charge we had ordinary lives, now look at us. We have only four days food left, then we will have to go to Basra to find more.

“There are thieves everywhere, stealing cars, tractors, food, water, whatever they can. If we catch them we will kill them, but there is no authority any more.”