POWs, bloodied bodies paraded
26/03/2003 18:05  - (SA)  

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Dubai - Al Jazeera television on Wednesday broadcast video material of two dead soldiers and two prisoners of war, all said to be British.

The video showed bloodied bodies in uniform, lying on their backs on a road. The two prisoners were shown briefly, looking sombre and uneasy, but there was no audio.

The Arabic-language television network, monitored in Dubai, said it obtained the video following fighting at Zubayr, near the southern Iraqi city of Basra, over the past two days. It did not say who supplied the video.

Britain's ministry of defence had no immediate comment on the Al Jazeera report.

British defence officials said earlier this week that two soliders had been killed in action near Zubayr, which British forces stormed early on Tuesday, destroying the local headquarters of the ruling Baath party.

British officials have also confirmed that two soldiers went missing on Monday following an attack on vehicles in the area.

The video broadcast on Al Jazeera showed a crowd of youths jumping up and down on a captured armoured vehicle, as well as pictures of what was described as a downed reconnaissance plane.

The video appeared to offer the first evidence that Iraq had seized British prisoners in the war, which Washington and London launched last Thursday in an effort to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi state television on Sunday showed video of five US soldiers captured after an ambush near the city of Nassiriya, as well as video of the bloodied corpses of up to eight US soldiers allegedly killed in the same encounter.

US officials denounced the footage, and said the questioning of the five captives on television violated the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

Iraqi television on Monday showed film of two pilots of a US Apache helicopter that was downed south west of Baghdad, although it did not show them being questioned.

Iraq, for its part, has accused US-led forces of kidnapping local civilians and showing them off as captured POWs.

US military officials said on Wednesday they had taken more than 4 000 Iraqi prisoners so far in the conflict.

- Reuters

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