8 Detained Sailors in British Custody

TEHRAN, Iran - Eight British troops who were detained after their boats strayed into Iranian territorial waters have been turned over to the custody of British diplomats, officials said Thursday.

"We have them now and we are flying up together with them ... from the place where they've been held up to Tehran," a Foreign Office spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.

The British spokesman said it was not yet clear what would happen when the troops reached the Iranian capital or where they would go from there, but said they would remain in the care of the British Embassy.

The six Royal Marines and two British sailors were detained Monday after their boats entered the Iranian side of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, or Arvand River, that runs along the Iran-Iraq (news - web sites) border. Officials said they were delivering a patrol boat to Iraq's new river police.

Britain and Iran had given conflicting reports Wednesday of the captives' status, with Iran saying they had been freed and the British Foreign Office rebutting that claim.

The Ministry of Defense said the personnel were from the Royal Navy training team based in southern Iraq and were delivering a boat from Umm Qasr to Basra, Iraq, when they were captured.

Iran had initially said it would prosecute the British servicemen for illegally entering Iranian territory. Concern about their treatment ran high in Britain after state television showed the sailors blindfolded.

But telephone conversations between British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharrazi appeared to ease the situation. Iran softened its position, saying the servicemen would be freed if interrogations proved they had "no bad intention."

Two of the detained men appeared on Iranian television Tuesday apologizing for mistakenly entering Iranian waters.

Iran will keep the three boats in which the British troops were traveling, as well as their weapons and other equipment, state television reported.

8 Detained Servicemen in British Custody

27 minutes ago

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran - Eight British servicemen who were detained after their boats strayed into Iranian territorial waters have been turned over to British diplomats, officials said Thursday.

Protesters angry about the occupation of Iraq (news - web sites) tried to approach the six Royal Marines and two sailors as they arrived at Tehran's airport accompanied by British consular officers, but they were kept away by police.

The eight were detained Monday after their boats apparently strayed into the Iranian side of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, or Arvand River, that runs along the Iran-Iraq border while delivering a patrol boat to Iraq's new river police.

"I'm told that they are in very good spirits and were well cared for," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a brief statement.

He said they would be taken to the British Embassy. He did not specify where they would then go.

Iran also briefly detained, investigated and then released an unspecified number of Turkish troops who had strayed across the border "by mistake," state-run television reported Thursday.

It gave no timing for the detention or release of the troops, but unconfirmed reports said Wednesday that 25 Turkish soldiers chasing Kurdish rebels crossed into Iran and were detained by Iranian forces.

The Arabic-language Al-Alam television station said a number of protesters waited at the Tehran airport for the arrival of the British servicemen. Hard-line Iranians opposed to Britain's prominent role in the occupation of Iraq have in recent weeks held angry demonstrations outside the British Embassy.

Strains between the two nations rose last week when Britain helped draft an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution rebuking Iran for past nuclear cover-ups.

The servicemen's capture had further fueled tensions between the two countries, but Straw said he remained convinced that Britain's policy of engaging with Iran was wise.

"We have diplomatic relations with Iran, we work hard on those relationships and sometimes the relationships are complicated but I'm in no doubt at all that our policy of engagement with the government of Iran ... is the best approach," he said.

He praised the efforts of his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharrazi.

Iran had initially said it would prosecute the British servicemen for illegally entering Iranian waters. Concern in Britain ran high after Al-Alam television showed the sailors blindfolded and sitting cross-legged on the ground.

But telephone conversations between Straw and Kharrazi and constant dialogue between British and Iranian officials appeared to ease the situation, and Iran softened its position, saying the servicemen would be freed if interrogations proved they had "no bad intention."

Two of the detained men appeared on Iranian television Tuesday night apologizing for mistakenly entering Iranian waters.

The Ministry of Defense said the personnel were from the Royal Navy training team based in southern Iraq and were delivering a boat from Umm Qasr to Basra, Iraq, when they were captured.

Iran said it will keep the three boats in which the British troops were traveling, as well as their weapons and other equipment, Al-Alam reported. But Straw said Britain and Iran were still discussing the possible return of the sailors' equipment and boats.

The waterway has long been a source of tension between Iran and Iraq. The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war broke out after Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) claimed the entire waterway.

Don’t worry about Brian he’s only a wannabe American who’s actually a sad Kiwi feeding off the success of the US. A parasite. He’s a very brave arm chair warrior who’d crap his lace panties in the event he was in the same situation.

Or a Kiwi.

The Kiwi’s have been sissified, they’re good enough for UN duties and performing Haka’s for chinese government delegates, but not much more.

It was an Aussie them Limeys shoulda had with them.

Hmm, thought the Aussies couldn’t scrape together any more than their 800 troops in Iraq now.

To [As usual] show them how and [As ever] to provide the guts and the backbone for getting it done.

Lets take the obvious ones.

Gallipoli - anzac’s were poorly trained and given a secondary objective and failed.

Crete - A Kiwi in command with a Kiwi battalion told to hold Maleme airfield (the Germans parachuted in unarmed and had to collect their weapons dropped in canisters AND, unlike the allies, had parachutes that where uncontrollable) the Kiwi’s failed.

Monte Cassino - US 34th attack and fail, NZ 2nd and Indian 4th attack and fail (commanded again by the Kiwi Freyberg, the master of Crete), 135 Flying Fortresses bomb and fail, Freyberg tries again and fails. French Moroccan irregulars and Polish II Corp attack and succeed. The Kiwi’s have claimed it as their victory ever since.

Singapore - Had the Australian 8th maintained some order and discipline, rather than bewilderment and disorganisation at the appearance of Jap infiltrators behind their line (lack of guts and the backbone?), they may have a walked away with better reputation than they did. Only one unit, the British 2nd Argyll and Sutherlands, showed how it should be done because they’d trained themselves properly.

The Aussies of course only had a part-time army before WW2, their main problem being only half of those who’d signed-up actually turned out for the training every fortnight. And the quality showed.

There again, the Singaporeans must have got what they wanted and deserved anyway, the proof being the lack of any serious resistance to the Japs even after occupation.

Bang goes them myths.

Singapore - 1942:

On Sunday, February 15, 1942, British Lieutenant General A.E. Percival, unbathed, degenerate, chronicly-alcoholic, homosexual [Like those other "great" poncing-poofter britons, field-mouse Montgummry -- who lost 80% of his command in one of HIS serial blunders and almost caused the American-led Liberation of Europe to be lost, post D-Day, because he failed to plan for Normandy's army-hiding hedgerows -- and the oft-cuckolded lord Mundtbatten whose South Asian blunders have cost the lives of millions -- and still reverberate] with girly-boy moustache and rotten rabbit teeth and lolling about the Cricket Club sucking down pink gins, surrendered Singapore, once-great-britain's much-vaunted "impregnable bastion" [And now very much America's] and more than 100,000 troops to a motley force of half-starved bicycle-riding Japanese of little more than half that number (62,200) under General Yamashita.

A heavy share of responsibility, of course, for all of the South-East Asian blunders fell on Churchill, who at least had the grace to write years later that it was "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history."

[Hard to know how he picked it from his own scores of twentieth century screwups and/or from within the enormous catalogue of once-great british blunders, colonial atrocities and all-around screw-ups that saw once-great-britain unable to win a single twentieth-century skirmish as the consequence of having been completely reduced by the end of the nineteenth century to its present status:

A fifth-rate squalidly-socialistic Euro-peon Neo-Soviet satellite state whose per-capita GDP, were it an American State, would put it among Mississippi, West Virginia and Arkansas, make it the fourth-from-bottom poorest state and would rank more than 60% of its indolent, work-ethic-deprived mobbed-up-unionized population as "Low Income." [Not to mention IQ and Moral Integrity]

At the time of his South-East Asia/Singapore blunders, Churchill's "policy" on the Far East was to "hope for the best" and that we Americans would as usual sacrifice our Blood and our Treasure to once-great-britain's ballsup. Too bad we had our hands more than full after Pearl Harbor.

As a further mark of Percival's military genius, [And despite British revisionists attempts to state otherwise] Singapore's much-vaunted 15-inch guns faced out to sea, not towards the narrow strip of water called the Johore Strait -- just a few hundred yards separating Singapore Island from the supposedly impenetrable jungle of Malaya to the north. Although there was plenty of time after he and the rest of the brits ran back to Singapore to hole out and hide up, Percival made no attempt to move the guns and/or even to mount a defense worthy of the name "for fear," he said, "of lowering the moral of the civilian population."

The incredibly brave and resolute civilian polulation who, that is, he was about to deliver into the hands of the barbaric Japanese. The once-great british, of course, in keeping with the overall standards of military prowess they have demonstrated in Asia and elsewhere, had made no effort to form a Malaya defense force.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese landed at Khota Bharu in the north of Malaya and began working their way down through the jungle.

The following day, two of the most powerful ships in Southeast Asia, the Repulse and the almost new Prince of Wales [Which had taken part in the excercise that led the Germans to scuttle their Bismarck the previous year] headed north [And East and North again and eventually South!] to "intercept the landings." But, his escorting aircraft carrier, Indomitable having, in yet another once-great-british blunder, been run aground off Jamaica, the commander, Admiral sir Tom Phillips, was dependent on local airfields for air cover.

After running about the South China Sea for a bit Phillips decided to head back to Singapore, but not wanting to break radio cover, he had another pink gin and failed to request air cover. On December 10 he was spotted by Japanese airplanes and within minutes he and seven hundred of the poor bastards under his command were dead and the two "great ships" were sunk.

The balance of the whole campaign shifted and Malaya was virtually unprotected from the sea. The back door to Singapore was now open and its british garrison, demoralized by the loss of its two capital ships. A month later, Yamashita captured Kuala Lumpur, with vast military stores. By the end of January, Percival had wimpisly withdrawn to Singapore Island.

Despite that he had, in the process of scampering for Singapore, deserted the valiant Australian and Indian defenders who suffered the misfortune of being commandered by him, [The final act in a catalog of cowardice, as far as Australia's Curtin Government was concerned, that put the seal on military cooperation between britain and Australia and provided the catalist for Curtin's approach to Roosevelt, the consequential forging of the presently existing unshakeable bond between America and its First and Best Ally, Australia -- and saw General Douglas McArthur immediately posted to Brisbane] Percival still had a force numerically superior to the Japanese attackers, who were exhausted, ill and nearly out of ammunition.

But, on February 8 1942 virtually without a fight, Yamashita's men crossed the Straits. A week later -- and despite Churchill's order for "every inch of ground to be defended," once-great-britain's much-vaunted "impregnable fortress," without a fight, was cravenly surrendered.

One of Yamashita's senior officers wrote later, "If the British had held out for even a couple of days, they would have defeated us."

At a cost of 3,500 killed, the Japanese thus forever smashed the delusion-based myth of british superiority and forever smashed the British Empire in the East.

To their credit the brave Australians whose misfortune it had been to have been placed under the command of the craven Singapore british absolutely refused to obey Percival's orders -- and have never surrendered to the Japanese.

Those Australians who subsequently perished in the Japanese captivity into which the gormless gutless brits had delivered them [In a rehersal, perhaps, for a later date upon which, in another of their obscene blunders, they cravenly surrendered seven and a half million once-FRee-british-Hong-Kong Citizens into slavery at the hands of Peking's predatory pack of medieval mass-murderers] bear the singular mark of their honor in that they are recorded as having been "Killed In Action," rather than "in captivity" as were those poor brits who were surrendered by the loathsome Percival.

Had the once-great-british Singapore "defenders" foreseen that until America's blood and Treasure once more bailed them out, almost four years of captivity in the most atrocious conditions lay ahead [Many of them were among the 12,000 Australians and POW's who died on the Burma Railroad] they might well have fought on -- or at least and as so often before -- have allowed the indominable Australians -- who to this day have still not obeyed Percival's craven surrender order -- but who did obey the orders of their own, Australian, Officers to lay down their arms -- to have done so for them.

Blessings -- Brian

BUMPping

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