Battle Lines
Tom Brown		Battle Lines is an ongoing Web log (blog) dedicated to providing a broad perspective on the latest news and developments from the war in Iraq. Response and suggestions are welcomed. Tom Brown has been an editor, reporter and software analyst for The Seattle Times for 20 years.

March 25, 2003

Bulletins from Basra

Two reporters with British forces at Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, report that a Shiite Muslim militia there has started a popular uprising against the Iraqi regime. British troops continue to slug it out with the Iraqi 51st division, which has dug into residential neighborhoods in the city of 1.7 million. The British also repelled the first major Iraqi counter-attack of the war southeast of Basra. A British military spokesman said British forces clashed with a battalion-sized Iraqi unit and destroyed about 20 tanks. A British raid also bagged a high-ranking member of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party who was in political control of Basra. The Shiite militia inside Basra was supported by British and American warplanes and helicopters in armed clashes with Iraqi units in city. The militia is said to number about 3,000. The Flipper factor The Navy has deployed some of its trained dolphins to help locate mines off southern Iraq so ships carrying relief supplies can enter the harbor there.

Posted by tbrown at March 25, 2003 11:38 AM

Katherine Long, research editor at the Seattle Times and 18-year editor and reporter, substituted for Tom Brown the week of April 14.

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