British forces pull out of base in southern Iraq (lost cause?)

[Robbien]

British troops today pulled out of a base in southern Iraq that had come under frequent attack, aiming to reposition their forces along the area bordering Iran and crack down on smuggling.

Camp Abu Naji in Amarah, 200 miles south-east of Baghdad, was turned over to Iraqi authorities, Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a spokesman for British forces, said from Basra.


The camp in Maysan province, which had housed about 1,200 troops, had been frequently targeted by militants over the past three years.

On Tuesday, a barrage of 17 mortar rounds was fired at the base, wounding a British soldier.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/story.asp?j=238720464&p=z387zy336&n=238721342&x=

Sounds like they are just giving up and going somewhere else to try their luck there.

[rodeodance]

1. smart move to redepoly elsewhere

[grytpype]

10. Please K&R this important story!

al Sadr is saying this is the first time an Iraqi city has expelled the occupier, and it appears to be so.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. One can only hope that the Iraqi authorities can do a better

job keeping the peace, and then everybody can come home.

[Stella_Artois]

3. The camp has been taken over by the Iraqi army

Isn't that what everyone wants ?

That the Iraqis take back their own security so everyone else can go home ?

Good luck to the new owners i say.

[Robbien]

6. BushCo is promising to give Iraq back to Iraqis when it is safe and secure

Doesn't sound too safe or secure in this instance. We took out all the old security and put in a volatable armed bunch who keep shooting, kidnapping and bombing everyone in sight. Then say see ya later alligator, its all yours. We are outta here.

[Henny Penny]

4. I wonder will they be nipping over the border...

to catch those pesky smugglers???

[Barrett808]

5. I wonder how long it took before the base was stripped bare by looters

As reported yesterday for the base at Camp Smitty.

[Barrett808]

11. Apparently, not long:

Iraqis loot base after British leave
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2474913

[IndianaGreen]

7. This is the beginning of the end

a war that was clearly lost, a war that should have never been fought!

[54anickel]

8. British troops adopt WWII tactics

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1249172006

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - British troops abandoned their base in Iraq's southern Maysan province on Thursday, which has been under almost nightly attack, and prepared to head deep into the marshlands along the Iranian border to hunt gun smugglers.

Soldiers of the Queen's Royal Hussars are to adopt tactics first pioneered by the famed Long Range Desert Group, a roving special forces unit that fought Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's German Afrika Korps in North Africa during World War Two.

The 600 combat troops are giving up their Challenger tanks and Warrior armoured fighting vehicles in favour of stripped-down Landrovers armed with machineguns. The units will remain constantly on the move and be resupplied by air drops.

"We are repositioning our forces to focus on border areas and deal with reports of smuggling of weapons and improvised explosive devices from across the border," British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge told Reuters.

"We are going to do what the Long Range Desert Group did in North Africa. We will live in the desert. We will be mobile and able to strike when we want. We will have surprise on our side," he said.

more...

[grytpype]

9. More on this from WaPo, it sounds serious...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401917.html

British Leave Iraqi Base; Militia Supporters Jubilant
Some Troops Will Reposition to Border With Iran

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 25, 2006; Page A14

BAGHDAD, Aug. 24 -- British troops abandoned a major base in southern Iraq on Thursday and prepared to wage guerrilla warfare along the Iranian border to combat weapons smuggling, a move that anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called the first expulsion of U.S.-led coalition forces from an Iraqi urban center.

"This is the first Iraqi city that has kicked out the occupier!" trumpeted a message from Sadr's office that played on car-mounted speakers in Amarah, capital of the southern province of Maysan. "We have to celebrate this occasion!"

Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a British military spokesman, said the last of 1,200 troops left Camp Abu Naji, just outside Amarah, at noon Thursday, after several days of heavy mortar and rocket fire by a local militia, which local residents identified as the Sadr-controlled Mahdi Army. Adopting tactics used by a British special forces unit in North Africa during World War II, 600 of the soldiers plan to slip soon into the marshlands and deserts of eastern Maysan in an attempt to secure the Iranian border.

The repositioning is the first public acknowledgment that forces from the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq have entered into guerrilla warfare to combat the insurgents and militias they have been fighting for more than three years.

...