Posted on 08/09/2007 9:47:47 AM PDT by uksupport1
It was either remarkable marksmanship or a fluke.
Private Craig Barber was killed by a single shot through a crack in the driver’s hatch of his Warrior armoured fighting vehicle, open against the sweltering heat of the Basra night. He died immediately, hit in the head.
But because the Warrior had its engine running and the vehicle was stationary, no one realised that he had been killed. It was a further quarter of an hour before Private Barber’s Warrior commander gave word to move and, puzzled by his driver’s silence, jumped down to see what had befallen him....
Private Barber’s comrades tried to get him out of the driver’s hatch so that another soldier could drive the vehicle away. But he was a huge man. As they struggled, they came under more fire.
Forced to abandon their efforts and get into cover, a recovery vehicle was given the task of towing their Warrior away back to Basra Palace. The journey out, earlier in the evening, had taken 25 minutes. With fire erupting around them, it took the soldiers more than two hours to battle their way back...
As members of the battlegroup fought their way back to Basra Palace, the radio hissed with word of fighting as militia closed in. One vehicle took a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade. Two roadside bombs were encountered and destroyed. A Rifles’ sniper on a rooftop killed all three members of an al-Mahdi Army bomb team as they laid another device.
The fighting continued almost up until the palace gate, ending with a large firefight and a huge volley of machinegun fire. The battlegroup estimated that they had killed between 20 and 30 militiamen during the action. It was scant consolation....
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
It appears that British forces have lost another two guys in Iraq today.
RIP to all Coalition forces
Until your government realizes that and acts accordingly your people will continue dying.
L
I think that’s the same situation all accross Iraq to be honest mate. The big irony is that after 9/11 Iran offered help to US pilots downed in the region in the war against the Taliban etc. But when Iran was mentioned in the Axis of Evil and then the invasion of Iraq occurred the hard-line Ahmadinejad was elected and the rest, as they say, was history...
Sniff...sniff....
I'm no stranger to indirect fire, but I was pretty impressed by the size of the incoming rockets, and the impunity with which said (Iranian supplied) rockets rain down on the encampment there. The Brits have devised some tough measures to minimize casualties, and are very stoic about the attacks. To be honest, after a few days of having to hit the deck, endure the salvos, and wait for the all clear, I was pretty well ready to be on my way.
I'm a big fan of Brit troops; they're smart, competent and tough. I've worked with them a number of times, and always enjoyed it. But in Basrah, they basically have both hands tied behind their backs, and that's no way to fight.
That's probably the lion's share of violence, as you said, and it is being directed at the UK forces on the airfield. Still, the situation in town is pretty grim, with various Shia factions struggling for power, and pretty much running amok. Since we no longer have much of a presence in town, it's hard to really say how much violence there is, but what we do know indicates that it's a bad scene and not likely to improve until one of the factions emerges victorious.
Its not just “your people,” its Americans too, and as long as we refuse to do anything about it, they will not stop.
Yep.
L
That's kind of an odd thing to say, considering that we've been sucking on Iranian made and supplied EFP IEDs for years. Our goverment has been just as limp in dealing with Iran as the UK. If you're nursing some fantasy that we're taking Tehran to task about killing U.S. soldiers, then let me be the one to let the Persian cat out of the bag. We ain't.
That has to be one of the more ridiculous posts I have ever seen on this site. Are you actually saying that President Bush is responsible for the Mullahs hostility to the Great Satan?
Please tell me that you don't believe that elections really *mean* anything in Iran.The 9th Century knuckledragging "mullahs" run the show there and *nothing* happens there without their consent....regardless of how they make things appear.
"Tragic" doesn't even begin to describe it.
RIP to all Coalition forces
You can say that again!
Hi Steel Wolf,
Thanks for the info mate. I’m glad you got out of there unscathed!
Some articles that I have read have suggested that the South of Iraq will become relatively peaceful once the British leave as the majority of attacks seem to be against UK forces. Do you believe this will be the case? I’ve heard that Basra etc was pretty lawless even during Saddam’s time (and he had much larger forces based there than Multi-National forces do at the moment). Do you think that the militia competition there at the moment is a continuation of this or something that will become much worse when British forces/ all forces eventually leave Iraq?
I believe (from the discussed article and wider reading) that the UK still has forces at Basra Palace (for a few more weeks at least). This is where the action cited in the article appearts to have taken place. Do you see indirect fire attacks becoming more intense on the airfield when the Basra Palace position is closed?
From what I understand, UK troops seem to prefer the war in Afghanistan to Iraq (as the UK increases its presence in Afghanistan) as fighting there is more conventional and less constrained etc. Is that the impression you recieved?
Sorry for all the questions, but I’m genuinely very interested in what’s going on in Iraq at the moment as the UK press is even worse than the US when it comes to that conflict.
Cheers,
UK
I am beginning to wonder if The Surge units, so effective in extending influence in Baghdad & Anbar Province, are going to get sucked in to policing Basrah as the Brits withdraw? This will effectively put an end to our offensive reserves & we’ll be right back where we started.
Maybe the smart thing to do would be to let the Shia fight it out & settle it among themselves — then deal with the winner.
No please don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming Bush/the West etc for anything. I was just reflecting on the fickle nature of countries in the Middle East.
Oh no, not at all mate. I know how autocratic the Iranian regime is. I wasn’t blaming the West for Iran’s thuggery, just notng how quickly relations can change in the Middle-East.
Too bad the British people cannot muster the courage of their soldiers and throw off the yoke of socialism that is strangling them.
I’d be very surprised if the Brits pull out completely while the US is still in Iraq. We’ll still maintain a presence there.
I hope that the surge does work and Petraeus does seem the right guy for the job. One key problem for the British, as I understand it, has been the number of troops available for Iraq. With UK forces on the front line in Afghanistan also we’ve had very limited resources to take on the militias in Iraq (not least in troop numbers). Of all the countries deploying troops to Iraq, only the US and British appear to have been ready to fight. With all due respect to the other nations involved (and their brave troops), their deployments appear to have just been political gestures. As with Afghanistan, it would be great if our other allies would pull their weight too.
Never said we weren't.
Our goverment has been just as limp in dealing with Iran as the UK
Sadly you're entirely correct.
If you're nursing some fantasy that we're taking Tehran to task about killing U.S. soldiers, then let me be the one to let the Persian cat out of the bag. We ain't.
Pity that. I can't understand why a few of those Al Quds bases aren't smoking ruins already. The word should go out that for every Iranian EFP we find in Iraq one Iranian military base or secret police headquarters is going to vanish in a fireball.
Or perhaps it would be better to target a few of the homes of the mullas instead. That would get some attention.
L
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