February 11, 2009 5:05 PM
- Text
As Brits Return From Iran, 4 Die In Iraq
(CBS/AP)
Four British soldiers were killed Thursday in an ambush in southern Iraq, and Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tehran's support for Iraqi militants could lead Britain "to reflect on our relationship with Iran."
The four British deaths — the biggest loss of life for British forces in more than four months — came as 15 British sailors and marines arrived home 13 days after they were seized by Iran off the Iraqi coast and held captive.
"Just as we rejoice at the return of our 15 service personnel, so today we are also grieving and mourning for the loss of our soldiers in Basra," Blair said.
In other developments:
The U.S. military reported the deaths of eight soldiers around Baghdad.
A U.S. Army helicopter went down south of the capital, but all nine people aboard survived, officials said.
A car bomb struck a Sunni Muslim television station in Baghdad's western neighborhood of Jami'a on Thursday, wounding at least six guards, a spokesman for the political party that owns the station said. Shortly after the explosion, the station went off the air, although a photo of a mosque with readings from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, appeared for a brief time.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday fired two senior members of his movement after they met with the top U.S. military officer in Iraq, a lawmaker close to the anti-American cleric said. The two were having dinner at the home of a former prime minister Monday when Gen. David Petraeus arrived; they failed to leave the room when the American walked in.
A bomb struck an oil pipeline Thursday, cutting off supplies and causing a huge fire in southern Iraq near the border with Kuwait, an official said. The pipeline carries oil from surrounding fields to storage tanks in Basra for export to the Gulf region, according to the official with the South Oil Co. But he said the tanks were full and export supplies had not yet been affected.
"It is far too early to say that the particular terrorist act that killed our forces was an act committed by terrorists that were backed by any elements of the Iranian regime," he said. "But the general picture, as I said before, is that there are elements at least of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming, supporting terrorism in Iraq."
The British patrol struck a roadside bomb and was hit by small-arms fire about 2 a.m. in the Hayaniyah district in western Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, British military spokeswoman Capt. Katie Brown said.
A Kuwaiti civilian interpreter was also killed and a British soldier was seriously wounded, Brown said.
The explosion left a crater three feet deep. Hours after the attack, the helmet of a British soldier lay in the street alongside dozens of spent shells.
Police said the British patrol was en route from detaining 1st Lt. Haidar al-Jazaeri of the Interior Ministry's Major Crimes unit. The police would not say why al-Jazaeri had been detained.
The deaths raised to 140 the number of British forces who have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, with 109 killed in combat.
Four British forces were killed Nov. 12 in an attack on a Multinational Forces boat patrol on the Shatt Al-Arab waterway in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. Ten Britons died in the Jan. 30, 2006, crash of a Hercules transport plane north of Baghdad.
The four British deaths — the biggest loss of life for British forces in more than four months — came as 15 British sailors and marines arrived home 13 days after they were seized by Iran off the Iraqi coast and held captive.
"Just as we rejoice at the return of our 15 service personnel, so today we are also grieving and mourning for the loss of our soldiers in Basra," Blair said.
In other developments:
(AP Photo/Asaad Mouhsin)
(AP)
"It is far too early to say that the particular terrorist act that killed our forces was an act committed by terrorists that were backed by any elements of the Iranian regime," he said. "But the general picture, as I said before, is that there are elements at least of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming, supporting terrorism in Iraq."
The British patrol struck a roadside bomb and was hit by small-arms fire about 2 a.m. in the Hayaniyah district in western Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, British military spokeswoman Capt. Katie Brown said.
A Kuwaiti civilian interpreter was also killed and a British soldier was seriously wounded, Brown said.
The explosion left a crater three feet deep. Hours after the attack, the helmet of a British soldier lay in the street alongside dozens of spent shells.
Police said the British patrol was en route from detaining 1st Lt. Haidar al-Jazaeri of the Interior Ministry's Major Crimes unit. The police would not say why al-Jazaeri had been detained.
The deaths raised to 140 the number of British forces who have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, with 109 killed in combat.
Four British forces were killed Nov. 12 in an attack on a Multinational Forces boat patrol on the Shatt Al-Arab waterway in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. Ten Britons died in the Jan. 30, 2006, crash of a Hercules transport plane north of Baghdad.
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