Audio-visual

Pictures: Iraq war 2003

Audio: Black Watch soldier killed

Audio: Mortar attack

Video: War in southern Iraq

Pictures: War in southern Iraqish troo

Iraq war
They poured out of their Warriors and let fly with grenades, guns, everything Just after dawn yesterday the Warrior crashed through the wall of the house tucked away down a side road in the Iraqi town of Al Zubayr, west of Basra.	Red hackles rise as the Black Watch stride out Tam o'shanter on his head, pistol in his belt, the commanding officer of the Black Watch is striding ahead through the crowded market place in the centre of the town of Az Zubayr.	Resistance crumbles as British troops make a decisive push Inside the bunker, the militia had only a few seconds left. The sound of a dull explosion rolled across the city. Over the radio, the Challenger crew reported the kill. "The target was engaged and the job was done."
Home thoughts that hurt as the black snow falls When they awoke it was everywhere, the oily cinders coating every surface, falling like tiny flakes of black snow. On their sleeping bags, on their skin, in their hair, breathing it in, impossible to brush off, melting into diesel-dark streaks, seeping into their pores.	As we lay blindfolded, tied hand and foot, our captors asked: 'Shall we kill them?' I said: 'We must pray together for a miracle. I told the men God will open this door and let us out. Half-an-hour later someone opened the door and ran away. We did not go out because we did not know if they were still there. But two hours later the army came and found us in the room. God must have given them the power to save us. It was a miracle."	War in the Gulf: Basra escape: Iraqi militia turns its fire on refugees: British rescue 1,000 fleeing across bridge The crowd was halfway across the concrete and steel span of the bridge when the mortar rounds started falling on the Basra side. Men, women and children screamed as they ran to escape machine gun fire coming from Iraqi positions. A thousand people, maybe more, ran for their lives.
Troops relish Basra statue raid It's 0600 and Basra is burning, black clouds of oily smoke drifting over the city to the east, the sound of gunfire rolling across the canal. The television mast that dominated the skyline is gone and many of the militia men, who have tormented the UK troops laying siege to the city and fired on their own people as they tried to flee, lie dead.	RESISTANCE MELTS LIKE THE SNOWS IN SPRING AS THE crowd swarmed around the tanks, waving and cheering, a man pushed forward with a bunch of flowers in his hand, picked from one of the gardens at the side of the wide-open street in the heart of Basra. He stepped up to the tank and handed one pink bloom to each of the soldiers standing up in the turret, and one to the driver whose head was poking through the open hatch at the front.	War in the Gulf: Into Basra - and the mood changes: British advance Paras mobbed by cheerful crowds as troops wonder at lack of resistance from Fedayeen Among those sweeping through the city, there was an almost palpable sense of disappointment, that this citadel which had held out for so long could be quite so ordinary. In the end, it seemed, no one had really wanted to stay on to fight.
BLACK WATCH LEADS WAY IN TO BASRA SADDAM Hussein's grip on power appeared to be crumbling last night, as British troops took control of Basra and United States forces tightened the noose around Baghdad.	DEADLOCK ON THE EDGE OF BASRA THE heat is stifling, sapping the spirit, sending the soldiers slinking into what little shade they can find. Lying under their vehicles, sprawled beneath canvas sheets, slumped in the slit trenches they dug the day they first arrived when they still feared the sudden attacks which sent them scampering for cover, they lie listlessly, moving only to find another bottle of the water which has been baking in the sun for hours.	FEAR OF HARMING CIVILIANS LIMITS SHELLING OF IRAQI MILITIA IN BASRA THE British guns are firing again, just as they did last night and just as they have done every night this week. The shells arc into the sky, glowing orange as they soar towards Basra with a deafening roar. They explode over the city, a pyrotechnic display lighting up the night sky. The huge 95lb shells packed with high explosive smash into the buildings sheltering militia forces.
ONE IRAQI'S STORY OF HIS FLIGHT FROM OPPRESSION UNTIL the bombs began to fall on Basra, the man sitting in the low, white building on the western edge of the neighbouring town of Az Zubayr had been a teacher, struggling to educate the young people of Iraq's second city and struggling to keep a roof over the heads of his young family.	BASRA BRITISH STEP UP CAMPAIGN BRITISH troops have been involved in heavy fighting around the southern Iraqi city of Basra as they step up their campaign there. Fedayeen militia were targeted by overnight bombing raids, in which 16 JDAM bombs - 2,000lb devices guided to their targets using global positioning satellite technology - were dropped on the city, but there was no official confirmation of casualty figures.	IT WAS MEANT TO BE BASRA BY BREAKFAST AND BAGHDAD IN TIME FOR TEA STRANGE to think that it is only a week since we crossed the Iraqi border, that mixture of anticipation and excitement and trepidation as we drove through the gaps in the sand bank, passed the wire and over the ditches and on into Iraq.

Post war
Caught in the middle as Amarah explodes "I want this moving now, now, now," he screamed, and there was another burst of gunfire overhead. Then they were there, the Warriors, with their 30mm cannon and chain guns, appearing over the crest of the bridge, just as the cavalry should.	Death at a checkpoint AHMED'S head is turned away to one side, his mouth open, the blood which streaks his face already dry. His right hand is by his side, the left curled across his stomach. The fingers stop a few inches from the inch-wide hole just above his groin.	THE SOLDIERS WHO FEAR THEY ARE FIGHTING A FORGOTTEN WAR IN THE darkness by the side of the road, Robert Grieve's Land Rover rolled over and over, bullets ripping through it and out the other side. The rocket-propelled grenade had hit the tyre and bounced off, but the force of the blast had tipped the vehicle over. As it came to rest, Grieve leaned forward just as his driver leaned back. In that moment, a bullet flashed between them, where their heads had been a second earlier.
NAME OF AL-SADR HANGS OVER UNEASY SOUTH ODAY al-Dibaj clasps the bars of his prison cell, his hair cropped close to his head, his beard neatly trimmed. He speaks fast, and passionately. The people love Muqtada al-Sadr, Dibaj says, because Sadr loves his country and supports all the good people in Iraq. Around him, the 20 or so other men with whom he shares his filthy cell in Basra's main prison press forward, agreeing with him, talking over him. Behind them, in between the slogans painted on black sheets, a picture of Sadr dominates the rear wall.	Hopes and fears on the eve of polling day as the average voter craves clean water, electricity and jobs THE streets of old Basra are silent, as they have been for hours since the pre-election curfew began. The shopkeepers keeping guard on their roofs against thieves taking advantage of the empty streets have abandoned their watch; the night vision equipment on the helicopter traversing the sky above the city shows fewer and fewer human forms. In the back streets around one of the old town's polling stations, British soldiers wait.	'EVERY SOLDIER IS A HERO AFTER A FIRE FIGHT' "I just rolled the grenade in and hit the deck. The grenade goes in and you hit the deck and bang. You don't notice the blast," he says. "You couldn't see anything, it was pure black, all you could hear was the groans from the areas where they had been injured from the first grenade, so that's what you go for first. You start at one end and you just spray to the other part of the building in the direction of where you hear the moans."
BLACK CLOUDS LOOM OVER BRITISH TROOPS IN BASRA THERE is a cloud of black smoke hanging over the area of Basra adjacent to the Shatt al Arab waterway as the Land Rovers approach the palace that Saddam Hussein built but never used. The soldiers providing top cover are the first to see it. Someone says they heard a bang from that direction as they left the police station a mile or so away	'WE WANTED TO CRY, BUT WE HAD A JOB TO DO' THE message crackled across the radio network and through the speakers in the cramped interior of the mortar platoon's vehicles, strung out across an ugly oil-smeared patch of concrete set among the shattered buildings of the old Iraqi transport yard overlooking Bridge 4 into Basra. "Contact." The message burst over the net as the trap was sprung. A rocket -propelled grenade left its launcher and hurtled towards the 432. And L-Cpl Stephen was gone.	BAPTISM OF FIRE IN THE STREETS OF AZ ZUBAYR "SARGE! Sarge!" The tugging on Sgt Euan McGilp's arm was insistent. "Sarge! Sarge!" McGilp gave in. He turned his attention to Henderson, 18 years old, who had arrived in Iraq only a few days before to join up with the rest of the battalion. The young man pointed at an alley-way a short distance away , where a figure in a shemagh was blasting away at them with an AK47.
IN THE DESERT DARKNESS, ARGYLLS' TRAP IS SET "LISTEN up, everyone," says Second Lieutenant Robbie Grieve. "If there is a casualty and it's a big contact then you have to leave him, guys. I know it's difficult, but when it's over then we will go back and deal with it. Try not to panic - remember, it's your mate there who might be dying."	FIREPOWER AND FEAR RULE ON THE ROAD TO BASRA ALI Baba," said the man standing at the checkpoint, drawing his finger across his throat and gesturing to the road ahead. "Ali Baba," he said, his arms stretched out towards the soldiers imploringly. His car had been shot up just a short distance from the police positions and he was in fear for his life.	REBUILDING AN IRAQI FORCE FOR LAW AND ORDER AMID THE CHAOS Colonel Abdullah Kaldoun is sitting behind the sagging chipboard desk in his spartan office. He is pulling on a Craven A cigarette. There are a number of discarded butts on the floor around him. It is a stressful job, he explains. There is glass in the window of his office now, though the door still hangs loosely on its hinges, the woodwork splintered around them and the place where the lock and handle had been before they were blown off.
Post-election Iraq is calm, but will it last? MY NAME? My name is Hanif Masoor, he says. He is smartly dressed, his dark blue jacket bearing the word Security picked out in yellow thread in English and Arabic. It is pitch black in the countryside on the southern edge of Basra, the full moon long gone. From the marshes all around comes the sound of bullfrogs croaking. It fills the air.	FIREPOWER AND FEAR RULE ON THE ROAD TO BASRA ALI Baba," said the man standing at the checkpoint, drawing his finger across his throat and gesturing to the road ahead. "Ali Baba," he said, his arms stretched out towards the soldiers imploringly. His car had been shot up just a short distance from the police positions and he was in fear for his life.	BRITISH TROOPS 'IN IRAQ FOR TEN YEARS' BRITISH troops may have to stay in Iraq for up to ten years to ensure security, the commanding officer of British forces in the southern Iraqi city of Basra told The Scotsman yesterday. Brigadier Nick Carter's warning came as the security situation in southern Iraq deteriorated after a day in which British troops came under sustained attack from supporters of the Shiite cleric Muqtadr al- Sadr, in the town of Al Amarah
Scots Guards sweep desert to thwart operation by insurgents

Recent
'We are tired of firing at people – get us out of here’ It was as astonishing an admission as any that has emerged from the lips of a British officer in the four and a half years since the tanks rolled over the Iraqi border. The British Army, said the man sitting in a prefab hut in Britain’s last base in the country, were tired of fighting. Not only that: their very presence in Basra was now the problem.		Basra fight pointless, says British commander Cars UK gave to Basra police now stolen
I no longer have power to save Iraq from civil war, warns Shia leader The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.	Saddam's end: tormented as he waited for death Taunted by guards during his final hours Hands tied behind his back, feet bound, Saddam Hussein shuffled on to the red-painted metal gallows for his execution yesterday. A shadow of his arrogant former self, he looked bemused, beaten.
Iraqi teachers are sacked in exam marking scandal Sunnis and Shias fail pupils from rival sects Iraqi pupils have had their dreams of going to university dashed by teachers who have been failing schoolchildren from rival sectarian groups.	Tortured screams ring out as Iraqis take over Abu Ghraib The notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad is at the centre of fresh abuse allegations just a week after it was handed over to Iraqi authorities, with claims that inmates are being tortured by their new captors.

Copyright ©2006 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved.