Friend or foe?

BASRA, Iraq, (AFP) -As the British soldiers fanned out quietly from the back of their armoured transport and took up defensive positions, headlights pierced the darkness farther down the moonlit Iraqi street.

When the cars pulled level with the infantrymen, who were crouched with rifles at the ready, they were revealed to be two slow-moving Iraqi police patrol vehicles, one flashing its roof lights in cautious greeting.

The soldiers were not relieved by the police's arrival. Instead they redoubled their vigilance, muttered warnings over their radios and flashed torches and red laser gunsights down side streets, watching for ambushers.

British troops in the southern Iraqi city of Basra are battling to break a reign of terror that has disrupted attempts to get the area back on its feet, but it is not always clear who their enemy is in the fight.

Patrol leaders regard Iraqi police units as probable spies for local Shiite militias and accuse them of acting as "dickers" -- or scouts -- reporting British movements to the gangs that plant roadside bombs.

British commanders, however, especially those involved in training Iraqi security forces, say the picture is more complex. They insist many officers are now working well despite the danger of being branded collaborators.

"Whenever we've had trouble the police have always come past first. They just clear the road and then we get hit," said Lance Corporal Daniel Hargreaves of the Staffordshire armoured infantry regiment during a daylight patrol.

A day earlier, walking through a ramshackle market under the Basra Gate triumphal arch on the northern limits of the city, Sergeant Alex MacDonald of the Royal Air Force Regiment said the same thing.

"They report on our movements and tell the 'anti-MNF forces' what we're doing," he told AFP, using the latest military euphemism for Iraq's illegal gunmen, an abbreviation for "anti-multinational forces".

Mortar shells and rockets crash into British bases around Basra on a daily basis, while heavily armed patrols scour the streets in armoured vehicles in a cat and mouse game with elusive enemy gunners.

Three years ago – shortly after they joined a US-led invasion to topple dictator Saddam Hussein – British troops patrolled in soft berets and won a warm welcome from Basra's overwhelmingly Shiite population.

But now soldiers often wear body armour and helmets even within their own bases. And when the alarms sound to warn of incoming fire, as they do most days, they lie on the floor in their own housing units and cookhouses. Commanders believe the route to victory is to build up the training and confidence of Iraqi government security forces, while gradually withdrawing Basra's 7,700-strong British and Danish force into a support role.

They say this policy is moving along, despite recent setbacks such as the murder by rogue cops of 17 Iraqis working at a British-run police academy.

Lieutenant Colonel Tim Sandiford, commander of the Staffordshire Regiment and its attached battle group, which patrols northern Basra, said that not all Iraqi police are in league with the militias.

"I do genuinely believe that often the man who comes up with lights flashing to see what's going on is just a policeman doing his best," he said, adding: "Are there some elements that are in bed with the militias? Yeah."Now on their second tour in Iraq, the Staffords are in a good position to know about the tense relations between the coalition and Iraqi forces.

On their first deployment they provided one of the iconic images of Iraq's descent into chaos, when troops with burning uniforms were photographed leaping from Warrior armoured cars during a raid on an Iraqi police station.

Last month the Staffords' Warriors were back at the same police base, and this time the key image was different -- the Iraqi station being blown to smithereens by British demolition charges.

On Christmas Day the battle group stormed the Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) headquarters, killing seven gunmen on the way, and removed 129 prisoners -- some of them torture victims -- whom they feared would be murdered.

Military engineers then destroyed the building with explosives. The feared SCU, a unit likened by British officers to a death squad, has now been disbanded and 69 of its members are on the run, moving from safehouse to safehouse to escape arrest warrants issued under Iraqi law.

British commanders see this as a victory against violent extremism, but it has damaged relations with local political leaders, and was widely seen outside Iraq as a sign that efforts to work with Iraq forces are failing.

Not so, say British and coalition commanders including Colonel Terry McCullagh of the Australian army, who heads the training mission.

"Ninety to 95 percent of the police down here are well-trained but they're ineffective, and the reason that they're ineffective is that they're intimidated by the remaining five percent," he said.

McCullagh's team has taken 20 trusted Iraqi officers to act as the kernel of a new unit – the Basra Crimes Unit – which will grow to more than 100-strong and replace the outlawed Serious Crimes Unit.

It is slow and difficult work, but commanders say they must be given time to complete it if Britain and its allies are to leave the Iraqi government with a fighting chance of controlling its own country.