British Royal Marines commandos clashed with Iraqi paramilitaries south of Basra today and killed a colonel from the Republican Guard, a British military spokesman said.
"There is an engagement going on between our commandos and paramilitaries. Five prisoners have been taken," Group Captain Al Lockwood said at war headquarters in Qatar.
Lockwood said the paramilitaries had attempted to leave the southeast of Basra, Iraq's second city, and were heading west when they were engaged in combat with elements of 3 Commando Brigade of the Royal Marines.
He said that one colonel in the Iraqi Republican Guard was killed and that five Iraqi paramilitaries had been captured. He did not say whether there were other casualties in the clash.
British forces have surrounded Basra but have not entered it, hoping it can be wrested from control of the government of President Saddam Hussein without the need to fight street by street.
Airstrikes on the southern city of Basra yesterday claimed the lives of 22 people and injured 68, Al-Jazeera said citing local officials.
The channel showed images of destroyed buildings and the injured in a local hospital with one gruesome image of a little girl with an amputated right leg.
The US army said that it destroyed a building in Basra where about 200 members of Iraq's Ba'ath party were meeting late on Friday, killing them all.
Agencies