According to this Sky News report, the distribution of food and water in the southern town of Al Zubayr had to be halted because Iraqi forces fired into the crowd:
Reporter Ian Bruce, who is travelling with Scots unit Black Watch, said troops had established a strong but not yet secure foothold in the town - a known Iraqi militia base - and were to begin distributing aid to its people.The troops were greeted by cheering crowds of several hundred people as they arrived western edge of the town, he said.
But before any food or water could be handed out, snipers opened fire and two mortars shells fell into the crowd.
The civilians scattered to escape a hail of bullets and mortar rounds which followed in quick succession and the relief effort was abandoned.
Also from al Zubayr, comes this report of treason and war crimes:
A British man has reportedly handed himself in to the Desert Rats in Iraq after travelling there to fight for Saddam Hussein.He surrendered to the Irish Guards near the southern city of Basra on Sunday telling them he had had enough and wanted to go home to his family in Manchester.
The unidentified man, who is in his 20s, was born in Iraq but speaks with a Mancunian accent.
He is being held in a prisoner of war camp south west of al Zubayr, according to Scotland's Daily Record newspaper.
The man handed himself in after joining Iraqi militia in civilian clothing in an attack on UK forces.
On the subject of treason: I happened to be in England in the aftermath of the John Walker controversy, when the subject of British citizens who had joined the Taliban was in the news. The subject of treason is touchy in the US, and people tend to shrink from it, don't have the stomach to apply it to anyone without multiple qualifications, if at all. Many people don't regard treason as a legitimate, reasonable, practicable category of human wrongdoing; and usually, as a practical if not essential matter, they turn out to be right. Nothing new about that.
Still, I was astonished at the prevailing attitude among my British acquaintances, right-thinking left-liberals all, who seemed to regard the ethnic background of the turncoats in question as the defining, deal-breaking mitigating factor. John Walker's actions, they may have been willing to concede, might have been treasonable, but the situation in Britain is different: you can hardly expect the same loyalty from non-Anglo Brits as you do from "ordinary English boys." (The fact that this is said in a slightly mocking tone, distancing the speaker from the sentiment, doesn't entirely change the fact that the sentiment is essentially being agreed with.) "It's not treason," said one. "It's understandable." Perhaps it is, if you try hard enough. I suppose the attitude stems from the multicultural impulse, the desire to err on the side of understanding when it comes to The Other, as recompense and acknowledgment, in part, for Britain's past imperial misdeeds (for which the Brits seem genuinely ashamed.) But it also sounds, just a bit, like a kind of racism. Are there supposed to be two types of British citizenship, one for non-Anglos, one for everyone else? I couldn't get my mind around it, and they didn't seem able to get their minds around the fact that I couldn't get my mind around it.
UPDATE: Bill Quick (via Tim Blair) quotes this bit from the Mirror's snippet on the incident: "...then he taunted soldiers saying he'd soon be back in Britain enjoying state benefits." Hah.
Posted by Dr. Frank at March 27, 2003 10:08 AM | TrackBack