Angry residents riot in Basra over fuel shortage
Basra
|Reuters
| 10-08-2003
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Riots broke out yesterday in the southern port of Basra as tensions exploded
over the British control of Iraq's second largest city, leaving seven soldiers
and four Iraqi civilians injured.
Residents hurled rocks and burned tires in all the city's main streets as Iraqis
raged in the blistering summer heat over the tortoise-like pace of the coalition
force's reconstruction efforts.
The rioting started minutes after witnesses said a grenade was hurled at a British
military truck near a gasoline station, where fed-up Iraqis waited in a long
line for fuel, angered by the fact they were queuing for hours in a country
with the world's second largest oil reserves.
Four British armoured vehicles and three jeeps came to seal off the area, while
a crowd lobbed rocks at them, witnesses said.
The soldiers fired in the air to ward off the crowd and then started to shoot
rubber bullets, wounding at least four Iraqis, including a child, they said.
The crowd, with some women in headscarves firing off Kalashnikovs in the air,
grew to more than 2,000 and shouted in anger over the gasoline shortage in the
city, they added.
Gas prices have soared from 150 dinars (10 cents) for 20 litres to 12,000 dinars
($8). The stone-throwing mob poured down the street toward the British forces'
headquarters and then the violence spread like wildfire.
A soldier was knocked in the head, another in the nose and a third was carried
off on a stretcher, while the British defended themselves shooting off rounds
of rubber bullets, according to a photographer. The British military confirmed
seven of its soldiers had been injured with "big bruises and some cuts".
In Texas, U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday vowed a "long-term undertaking"
to bring democracy and economic prosperity to Iraq and across the Middle East.
In his weekly radio address, Bush offered an upbeat assessment.
The U.S. military and its allies had made "steady progress," he asserted. "We're
keeping our word to the Iraqi people by helping them to make their country an
example of democracy and prosperity throughout the region."
But, he added, "One hundred days is not enough time to undo the terrible legacy
of Saddam Hussain. There is difficult and dangerous work ahead that requires
time and patience."
But Iraqi insurgents vowed in a video that resistance would not subside anytime
soon.
Al Arabiya television aired a video of hooded militants who blasted Shiite Muslim
clerics in Iraq for failing to declare "jihad" (holy war) against the coalition
and vowed to keep up attacks on the occupation force.
U.S. overseer Paul Bremer said yesterday that agents from the U.S. Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) had arrived to take charge of the investigation as requested
by Iraq's interior ministry.
Bremer said he had not "reached a conclusion yet" on who was responsible for
the attack that killed at least 14 people.
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