British troop seized rogue Iraqi police unit leader

BASRA, Iraq, Dec 22 (Reuters) British troops backed by tanks today seized a leader of a rogue Iraqi police unit suspected of being behind the killing of 17 people in an ambush near the Iraqi city of Basra, the British military said.

Some 800 troops launched a pre-dawn raid on a house in a southern district of Basra and captured seven people, including a ''significant'' member of Basra's police Serious Crimes Unit, British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said.

No shots were fired in the operation and there were no casualties, he added.

Burbridge said the officer was suspected of links to an incident in October, when gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying police translators, trainers and cleaning workers from a police academy to Basra on Sunday.

At the time, a police source said the gunmen shot their victims in the head and the chest and dumped the bodies around Basra.

Police in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city and the scene of bloody turf wars between Shi'ite factions competing for control of the city's oil wealth, have been infiltrated by militias accused of killings and kidnappings.

''The Serious Crimes Unit has been a problem for three years,'' Burbridge said. He said today's raid was part of an on-going operation to disband the unit.

British troops have carried out several operations this year to root out rogue elements of the unit.

Britain has around 7,100 troops in southern Iraq, mostly stationed in and around Basra. The city's oil wealth is the source of most of the Iraqi government's revenues.

Britain hopes to pull out thousands of troops next year and hand over control of Basra to Iraqi authorities in April, although British military officials say that is dependent on security conditions on the ground.

REUTERS SP VV1916