Britain Sends 500 Troops Back to Southern Iraqi Town

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, June 29, 2003

Britain Sends 500 Troops Back to Southern Iraqi Town

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British forces in southern Iraq have sent 500 troops back to the southern Iraqi town of Majar al-Kabir, where six British military personnel were killed, the British Ministry of Defense said Saturday.

"About 500 troops went in with the full knowledge of the local authority and we have resumed joint patrols with local police officers," a spokesman for the ministry said.

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons that six members of the Royal Military Police were killed Tuesday in Majar al-Kabir, a Shiite town in British-controlled southern Iraq, while training local police.

The ministry is now investigating which groups were behind the incident.

The return to Majar al-Kabir came after 52,000 leaflets promising no mass punishments for the killings were dropped onto the town by a British plane, local reports said.

Full details of Tuesday's events have not been known yet, but reports said at least four Iraqis also died as British military policemen attempted to hold back a crowd, which were demonstrating against the searching of houses for alleged illegal weapons. Opposition to the searches had provoked anti-British violence, reports said.

The incident on Tuesday marked the heaviest losses suffered in a single day by US-led coalition forces since the United States declared on May 1 that major military campaign in Iraq was over.

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