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British troops in riot gear deployed in Basra today to quell spreading disturbances sparked by shortages of petrol and power in Iraq's second city, a British military spokesperson said.
Witnesses said angry Iraqis threw stones, attacked cars registered in nearby Kuwait and burned tyres. Several streets and main roads leading into the city were cut as black smoke rose from the fires. British forces fired into the air to keep back a crowd at one petrol station, they said. The army spokesperson said violence broke out outside at least four petrol stations but he could not confirm that soldiers opened fire.
Shi'ite Muslim clerics were at the main flash point, a petrol station at Saad Square, trying in vain to convince a crowd of hundreds to stop hurling stones at the troops, witnesses said. The spokesperson said British officers were in contact with local authorities to contain the situation.
Hundreds of people also marched to the headquarters of the British forces, once a palace for the deposed Saddam Hussein, where they demanded the restoration of power and petrol supplies, witnesses said. Some stones were thrown at the guards. About 10 000 British soldiers have been policing large swathes of southern Iraq since the US-British invasion in March forced Saddam into hiding and destroyed his government.
Tanker ablaze
Earlier a British military spokesperson said there had been trouble at a petrol station in the city and that some Iraqis had stoned and burned a Kuwaiti tanker. He said British forces rescued the occupants of the vehicle. Another Kuwaiti car was stoned and burned, witnesses said.
Witnesses said the crowd was enraged by the lack of petrol at the station and power in the city where summer temperature was over 50 degrees Celsius. They said the soldiers opened fire in the air after the angry crowd threw stones at them and at the Kuwaiti tanker at the fuel station in Saad Square. The crowd then set the tanker on fire, they said.
One witness said he saw three British soldiers injured by stones. The British spokesperson could not confirm there had been any injuries. The spokesperson said two power generators at the station had broken down due to the heat, preventing it from pumping petrol to customers. Locals accused Kuwaiti tankers of smuggling cheap Iraqi petrol to Kuwait.
There has been ill feeling between Iraqis in the south and their wealthy Kuwaiti neighbours, particularly since Saddam's invasion of the oil-rich Gulf state in 1990. The spokesperson acknowledged that there had been "increased frustration" in Basra over continued power cuts and petrol shortages caused by the cuts.
He said criminal activity that included the cutting of power lines was hampering attempts to restore services to the city of two million. - Reuters
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