Rebels captured while planning attacks

Four rebels said to be planning attacks on British troops were captured by Iraqi forces after a gun fight in Basra today.

National Guardsmen arrested the four after a brief battle at Basra’s Al-Yarmouk Hotel. Three came from Fallujah and the fourth from Samarra, said an official.

Their capture came a day after a joint British-Iraqi operation netted three dozen men in the area.

The four told Iraqi officials they were planning a series of attacks in southern Basra, which is the headquarters of 8,500 British troops, in an attempt to relieve the US military pressure on Fallujah.

One of the insurgents was injured during the gunfight and weapons were found in their hotel room, the Iraqi official said.

The arrests followed a larger operation yesterday where Iraqi National Guards and police commandos, backed by coalition forces, raided several locations in the town of Zubayr, just west of Basra, said British spokesman Major Charlie Mayo.

About 60 British and 30 Danish soldiers maintained perimeter security as another 60 Iraqi National Guards and police swept through several buildings in Zubayr.

A total of 36 people were detained, all of them from outside the Basra area, along with quantities of weapons, ammunition and drugs, he said. Some of them have already been released.

Iraqi officials said the group included Iraqis, Afghans and other Arab foreign fighters.

The raiding forces found a safe house for the insurgents in Basra. The house was considered as the main base where weapons and money were kept to be used by the insurgents.

Basra Police Chief Brigadier Mohammed Khazim said the raids over the past two days arose out of information revealed by five Arab foreign fighters arrested on Wednesday night at a checkpoint 37 miles north of Basra.

Those five men told police they had escaped from the rebel city of Fallujah with plans to attack British troops and Iraqi police in southern Basra.

The men said they were supposed to be assisted by another group, which had already infiltrated the city, Khazim said. They were told that the weapons needed to carry out the attacks were already hidden inside Basra, he said.