The
British Military, in particular the "Desert Rats", had moved
right up to the edge of Basra in their siege of this southern Iraqi
city. Overnight, they had taken a key point on the southern edge of
the school, the Basra Technical School. Until this point, Pro-Saddam
militia were using this as one of many points from which they were
firing RPG's and mortar rounds at the British. The British military
moved in to this school and set up a base. On the outside perimeter
of the school, dead Iraqi corpses lay with RPG launchers and RPG's
strewn all over around them. They were killed while fighting the British
forces on the edge of the city. Late in the afternoon, several people,
who appeared to be relatives, came to recover the body of one of the
Iraqi fighters. Aside from the men that came to claim his body, an
elder woman was present, and judging from her emotion and intense
interest in the recovery of the body, one could assume it was a family
member of the dead soldier.
