US forces net 2 Iranian officials in Iraq

Iraqis inspect the debris of the destroyed headquarters of an Iraqi police unit, demolished by British forces yesterday in the southern port city of Basra. PHOTO: AFP

"Two people who were invited by the president to Iraq have now been apprehended by the Americans, and the president is unhappy with the arrests," Hiwa Osman, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's media adviser, told AFP.

"The invitation was within the framework of an agreement between Iran and Iraq to improve the security situation," he added.

Separately, a leading Shia lawmaker and imam, Sheikh Jalal Eddin al-Saghir of the Baratha Mosque, told AFP that two Iranian diplomats had also been seized by US forces in Baghdad on Thursday last week, but later released.

"Two diplomats from the Iranian embassy came to see me at the mosque to offer condolences on the death of my mother," he said.

"After they left the mosque and were travelling back to the embassy they were arrested by the Americans, with two of their guards. I don't know why. I later heard that they'd been released," he said.

Confirmation of the arrests came after the New York Times, citing senior US officials, reported that several Iranians were arrested by US forces in Iraq last week on suspicion of planning attacks on Iraqi troops.

"We continue to work with the government of Iraq on the status of the detainees," Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, told the New York Times, according to its report.

Meanwhile, British forces shot dead seven Iraqi gunmen and demolished the headquarters of an Iraqi police unit yesterday in order to protect 127 prisoners they feared would be murdered by rogue officers.

Major Charlie Burbridge, a British military spokesman, said many of the prisoners held by Basra's notorious Serious Crimes Unit had been tortured and that intelligence reports suggested that they were to be killed.