Brits caught in Basra blast

A British Army vehicle was damaged by homemade explosive in an attack in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

There were no casualties in the incident, and the four-tonne lorry and a second truck were able to return to base without assistance, an MoD spokesman said.

There was confusion earlier over the incident, after the MoD initially said it had no record of any attack on British personnel.

But it was later confirmed that the blast occurred at around 8.45 on Sunday morning local time (5.45am UK time) as the trucks drove through the streets of Basra. It was unclear whether the explosive was thrown at the lorry or planted as a landmine.

In a separate incident on Saturday, two soldiers suffered minor injuries in a traffic accident in Basra.

News of the attack came as Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon played down the security threat faced by British troops in the south of the country, largely populated by Shia Muslims who suffered under the rule of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Although UK personnel were constantly aware of the risk of attack, they were making "significant progress" in restoring normality in the south of Iraq, he told Sky News's Sunday programme.

Criminality was a bigger issue in their day-to-day operations than terrorism and paramilitary activity, which were largely confined to the capital Baghdad and the Sunni-dominated areas occupied by the US.

Mr Hoon said: "There are certainly very real concerns about security in a particular part of Baghdad and an area to the north-west of Baghdad.

"But I was in Iraq about two weeks ago visiting British troops, particularly in the south, where their biggest difficulty is not actually attacks by terrorists - although they remain on guard to prevent such attacks - but criminality and low-level disruption to their efforts to improve the everyday way of life for the Iraqi people."

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