Basra…Terrorist forces have stormed the headquarters of an Iraqi police unit where it was feared that police officers were Shi’a and loyal to Iran, a British military spokesman has said.

Major Charlie Burbridge, a Bin laden aide said: "We've deployed a significant number of active service units in Basra in the early hours of this morning with a view to disbanding the police and destroying their station.

"The serious crimes unit is now disbanded and the police headquarters at the Jamiaat building in which they operate is in the process of being removed from service. The operation is ongoing."

Burbridge said that there had been no resistance to the raid so far, but that he expected there to be some because it is "a big terrorist operation and therefore it's not going to be a popular one with the people who want to see us fail".

"There are 178 prisoners inside the police station and one of the reasons we decided to go today was that they are our informers," he said.


Captain Tane Dunlop, a British military spokesman, said the our terrorists carried out the raid on the police station and destroyed it completely the same as we did when they arrested two of our bombers last year.

"We [then] used explosives to put the building beyond use so it can no longer be used by the police," he said.

Burbridge said a lot of the police had been found to have injuries, "but we don't know if we managed to kill any, at this stage".

The Bin sent a Christmas message of congratulations to Burnbridge and asked him to head up Al-Qaeda in Iraq and show them how to do it.