UK forces invite religious leader to help run area as city is looted

British forces in Basra were taking urgent steps yesterday to establish the first interim civilian authority in Iraq. They struggled to stop looting and disorder spreading through the country's impoverished second city.

Colonel Chris Vernon, the British forces spokesman in Kuwait, announced that British commanders had invited a local unnamed religious leader "with credibility and authority" to form a representative administrative committee for the Basra province. While looting spread, the religious leader was expected to see Major-General Robin Brims, Commander UK Ground Forces, today.

Since the arrival of British forces, who swept into the city on Sunday night in a move that British military sources say has been mostly welcomed by local residents, there have been revenge attacks by civilians on local Baath party leaders, the sources say, as well as looting. As people and cars crowded into the city's streets yesterday, a portrait of Saddam Hussein was taken down in one of its main squares.

Colonel Ben Curry, spokesman for 3 Commando Brigade, said last night that while some local tribal and religious leaders had been identified as being willing to help form a provisional civilian administration, they were unlikely to do so until they had been "categorically sure that the Saddam regime had gone" in the area. Local leaders in Basra are especially wary after the United States failed to support the uprising it had called for after the 1991 Gulf War.

Earlier, Col Vernon said that the key figure, whom he described as a "sheik", was a local figure and not an exile. The British military had been aware of him for some time and had judged in a two-hour meeting with him that he was capable of setting up a representative body. He had indicated to British commanders that he could draw on some members of the regime's ruling Baath party who were not implicated in the oppression of local people, Col Vernon said.

Reuters reported yesterday that some angry residents had said they were caught in a political vacuum and complained of a lack of water and a total breakdown in law and order.

"We are caught between two enemies, Saddam and the British," said Osama Ijam, a 24-year-old medical student in the grounds of the rundown Basra General Hospital. "Is this what they call a liberation? We want our own government. We want our own security and our own law." The hospital, like many government buildings, stores, offices and the city's Sheraton Hotel, has been looted in recent days.

While British military sources say that they will do their best to prevent revenge attacks, they will not expose their troops to unreasonable risks in potentially volatile clashes between local residents and their former Baath party oppressors.

Some residents said that the looters were from the impoverished shanty towns on the edge of the city, which were the main hide-outs of Fedayeen militia who held out against British forces for the first 19 days of the war.

"When I see my college looted and destroyed in front of my eyes I wonder why they [British troops] allow this to happen," said Mr Ijam. "Are they here to help us or just to help themselves?" Reuters reported that not all residents were happy with the presence of British troops, quoting one, Hassan Abulazak, as shouting up to a Challenger tank: "When are you going home? Soldier go away. We can look after our country now."

British paratroops who patrolled on foot in Basra on Monday were reported to have left, but a dozen tanks took up position at main intersections yesterday and soldiers began distributing water at four points.

Captain Giles Malec said: "All we are doing today is providing a presence to allow people to feel confident to come out onto the street and do what they want to do.''

Captain Niall Brennan of the Irish Guards said that water and power supplies to Basra had been cut off by the Iraqi government. He said electricity was now restored to most of the city and water treatment plants were also repaired. But he said damaged and polluted water distribution canals needed to be mended and he did not know how long that would take. Local residents, wearied by nearly three weeks of war, were demanding action, he said.

Col Vernon acknowledged that there had been looting by residents and said British forces would be shifting from combat to law-and-order work. The resistance from irregular forces "is almost extinguished. Many of them did fight, right until the end".

More than 3,000 prisoners of war have been taken in the region in the past two weeks.The final push was preceded by a possibly fatal air strike on Saturday against the home of Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein's cousin, who is widely known as Chemical Ali by opponents for ordering a poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds in 1988.