By Nancy Trejos and Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 26, 2006; A17
BAGHDAD, Dec. 25 -- About 1,000 British and Iraqi troops raided a police station in the southern city of Basra on Monday, killing seven gunmen and taking custody of more than 100 prisoners who were believed to be marked for execution by a renegade police unit.
Many of the prisoners at the Jamiat police station showed signs of torture, including cigarette and electrical burns, gunshot wounds in their legs and knees, and hands that had been crushed, said Capt. Tane Dunlop, a spokesman for British forces in Iraq. The station, a base for a squad known as the serious crimes unit, was later blown up by British forces.
The targeted unit "was in fact living up to its name," Dunlop said. "It was conducting serious crimes rather than preventing it."
Iraqi police forces are widely thought to be infiltrated by Shiite militias, but British military spokesmen said the rogue elements in this particular unit were involved in gang-like activity rather than sectarian killings. Still, the episode highlighted the challenges U.S.-led coalition forces face in preparing the Iraqi army and police to secure their own country. Training Iraqi forces to do so is considered key to any U.S. troop withdrawal.
Maj. Charlie Burbridge, another British military spokesman, said the serious crimes unit had been suspected of illegal activity, including kidnappings, murders and attacks on British and other multinational forces.
The operation against the unit began Friday, when seven of its leaders were detained, Burbridge said. British forces were particularly interested in capturing the unit's ringleader, who was suspected of participating in the deaths several weeks ago of 17 civilians who had worked for an Iraqi police academy.
The British military made clear its plans to disband the unit. Fearing that the Iraqis would kill their prisoners before losing their jobs, the British forces decided to move the detainees elsewhere.
At the station Monday, they met with resistance but were able to overpower the armed men, Dunlop said. They then confiscated weapons and explosives and took custody of 127 prisoners, 100 of whom had been packed into one cell. The Iraqi army assumed responsibility for the prisoners, taking them to other detention facilities.
British troops have normally maintained a low profile in Basra. But they ended their raid on Monday by demolishing the base with explosives. The building, Dunlop said, had "a lot of bad history."
"We wanted to get rid of it," he said. "We want to send a message and prevent its reoccupation by criminal enterprises."
Brig. Mohamad Humadi, Basra's police commander, condemned the operation, saying the British military did not give him and other police in the city enough notice. Ali Humadi, an official with the Basra Security Committee set up by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said his group had no prior knowledge of the operation.
But an Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman, Mohammed al-Askari, said the raid was a coordinated effort among coalition and Iraqi forces and the country's Interior Ministry.
Separately on Monday, U.S. and Iraqi officials announced that they had released a group of Iranians that American forces had detained last week on suspicion of planning attacks in Iraq. Three or four of those detained were Iranians who had diplomatic immunity, said a State Department spokesperson who spoke on condition of anonymity. They were turned over to the Iraqi government, which in turn transferred them to Iran.
A White House spokesman, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said only two Iranians had diplomatic immunity. He said that the event could validate U.S. claims that Iran was meddling in the affairs of Iraq but that the United States wanted to complete the investigation "before characterizing their activities."
It was unclear Monday what evidence of planned attacks the Americans had for detaining the Iranians. Also unclear was why the Iranians would have been released if they were seen as dangerous to U.S. interests in Iraq.
According to Iraqi officials, at least two of the detained Iranians were diplomats invited by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Their detentions occurred at a sensitive time for Iraq's Shiite government, as it tries to engage Tehran to play a role in improving security in Iraq.
The detentions set off a flurry of diplomatic activity by Iraqi officials to secure the Iranians' release. But the State Department spokesperson stressed that the Iraqi government did not pressure Washington to hand over the Iranian diplomats.
"Our actions were in no way dictated by pressure from the Iraqi government, or any party in the government," the State Department spokesperson said.
Elsewhere in Iraq, three American service members were killed, the U.S. military reported.
On Sunday, one Marine and one soldier assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died during fighting in the western Iraqi province of Anbar. On Monday, a roadside bomb killed a soldier and wounded two others while they were conducting a security patrol in a southern Baghdad neighborhood.
In Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, an insurgent killed a student and a policeman at the entrance of Anbar University when he detonated his explosives vest, the U.S. military said. Five policemen were wounded.
Staff writers Michael Fletcher and Glenn Kessler in Washington and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.