An Iraqi man is held for questioning outside the besieged southern Iraqi city of Basra, yesterday. Basra, home to around 1.5 million people, has been bombed by fighter planes and come under shell fire since US and British troops invaded Iraq 11 days ago to topple Saddam. - Reuters AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar, (Reuters):
BRITISH ROYAL Marines commandos captured an Iraqi general and killed another senior officer in clashes with Iraqi paramilitaries south of Basra yesterday, a British military spokesman said.
Group Commander Al Lockwood, spokesman at war headquarters in Qatar, said senior Iraqi officers were mixed in with paramilitaries who clashed with British Royal Marine commandos southeast of Iraq's second city.
"I don't know what unit (he was from). I do know that we have a general," Al Lockwood told Reuters.
Five other Iraqis were captured in the same clash, and one Iraqi Republican Guard colonel was killed, he said. He gave no further details of casualties.
Lockwood said the paramilitaries and officers had attempted to leave the southeast of Basra and were heading west when they were engaged in combat with elements of 3 Commando Brigade of the Royal Marines.
He said he believed the Republican Guard officers had been sent to the city to help oversee resistance by the irregular forces there.
British forces have surrounded Basra, Iraq's second city, but have not entered it, hoping it can be wrested from the control of President Saddam Hussein's government without the need to fight street by street.
Fighting has disrupted food and electricity supplies and forced many civilians to flee the city.
