Safwan, Iraq — Southern Iraq descended further into lawlessness Monday when gunmen forced the shutdown of a British military post and the closing of a main supply route for U.S. and British forces.
The chaotic conditions also forced a convoy of journalists to withdraw from Iraq for safety reasons. It was one of the last remaining groups of independent journalists in the battle zone of the south.
I was among the convoy when British forces ordered us to travel deep into the oilfields of Western Iraq on Sunday night to escape a threatened attack by Iraqi gunmen armed with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
We had been sheltering at a British military post at a key highway intersection on the outskirts of Safwan, a town that had been captured by Anglo-American forces last Friday. But the post went into high alert on Sunday night when we learned that the gunmen were planning an attack on the journalists and the British soldiers. We were ordered to drive 40 kilometres into the empty deserts of Western Iraq in a darkened convoy.
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Monday morning, when we returned to Safwan, we discovered that the British soldiers had abandoned the highway post and closed the main route to Kuwait. We were told that the only safe place in the region was a small British command post, several kilometres west of the town.
We heard rumours of a gunfight in Safwan overnight, although the British officers refused to confirm the report. They did confirm, however, that a group of gunmen — armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons — had been spotted in the town, and the road had been closed for fear that the gunmen were planning to ambush a military convoy.
A few hours later, the road was reopened and the journalists were able to escape to Kuwait.
The temporary closing was highly significant, however, because the road through Safwan is a key supply route for the U.S. and British forces, connecting their forward positions to the main north-south highway from Kuwait's airport and seaport. It showed that the supply route is vulnerable to attack by small groups of Iraqi gunmen.
The incident also showed the insecurity and power vacuum in the regions of Southern Iraq that have been captured by U.S. and British forces since the start of the war. In towns such as Safwan, local police and government officials — closely linked to the regime of Saddam Hussein — have fled the towns. Nothing has replaced them, and it is increasingly clear that the coalition forces cannot provide law and order in the towns. British soldiers estimate that 80 to 90 per cent of the Iraqi civilians have weapons.
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