British troops [with rubber bullets] and Iraqi police [with real bullets] had fired at armed, stone-throwing protesters, killing six people and wounding 11. British soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Light Infantry then moved in with armored vehicles to support the police.

Some in the crowd lobbed three explosive devices at them; the British troops fired volleys of rubber bullets in a bid to disperse them and then rushed the crowd and arrested nine of the thugs, bringing them into the governor's compound where they begin to beat the crap out of them, deservedly so, and then released them a few hours later.

Now my own experience in these things [I was at the Paris-student revolt in Paris in 1968 and in Prague when the Soviets invaded the city] is that if I throw rocks at foreign armed soldiers and someone in my group lobs grenades at them, I can expect more than a wicked ass-whipping if I'm caught. And if all I got was a beating and let go, I'd say I came out pretty good, no complaints thank you.

What the Iraqi leadership in Basra needs to do is put up posters showing a young man poking a stick into a lion's eyes. The caption should read: "Antagonize at your own Peril - Don't be a Muslim Idiot"

Unfortunately, unfairly, Two more British soldiers, including a non-commissioned officer, were arrested yesterday in connection with the video-taped abuse of Iraqi teenagers