British surround city in grip of Saddam's militia

The siege of Basra has reached a state of tense stalemate. British soldiers have encircled the outskirts, setting up roadblocks on all of the main routes, while armed Iraqi militiamen maintain control of the city itself with a ruthless grip.

British forces say they are achieving their objective of containing Iraq's second city, happy at this stage to hold back rather than engaging in the sort of urban warfare that would be required to take it. But they are doing no more than that: despite claims that troops are involved in "aggressive patrolling" they dare not venture too far into the city.

At the Zubayr bridge, one of the main routes into the city, the distance that separates the front lines of British soldiers from the 7th Armoured Brigade and militiamen loyal to Saddam Hussein is no more than a mile.

That mile of road passes though what is little more than a wasteland. On one side of the road sits a badly damaged group of buildings reportedly belonging to the city's university. In recent days British troops have said they have come under attack from those buildings with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The blackened and broken state of the compound is the result of the fire returned by the British troops.

Along this road small groups of British soldiers could be seen patrolling on foot yesterday morning, with Challenger tanks supporting them a little way behind. But the soldiers were not advancing too far into the city: a little way ahead of them was a checkpoint set up by armed militiamen in civilian clothes.

Exactly how the battle for Basra will be played out is still unclear. Allied forces had hoped that by now the largely Shia population would have risen up and overthrown forces loyal to President Saddam. But information gleaned from some of the thousands of people who have left Basra in recent days suggest that the only such uprising was put down last week, and up to 15 people were killed. These reports have not been confirmed independently.

In these circumstances British troops have been concentrating on the areas around Basra, clearing parts of the nearby town of Zubayr, known as a hotbed of banditry.

There are also reports that Zubayrmay be home to some of the most militant elements of President Saddam's forces. They have been involved in firefights in the town of Abu al Khasib, south-east of the city, where British forces seized an Iraqi officer on Sunday night during a mission called Operation James. Yesterday Allied officials revealed he was not a general, as they had previously claimed.

Group Captain Al Lockwood, the main spokesman for British forces at Central Command headquarters in Qatar, said the "softly, softly" approach to Basra would continue. "We're obviously fully aware that there are large number of civilians there," Gp Capt Lockwood said. "We're treating it very carefully and we'll continue with the approach we're doing at the moment, it's showing considerable success."

To the north-west of Basra, troops from 7 Para Royal Horse Artillery said they had destroyed 25 Iraqi tanks in a 24-hour battle on Sunday. "We identified a number of Iraqi formations north-west of Basra. The formations were hit with artillery and air strikes and a number of tanks, artillery pieces and infantry positions were taken out," Gp Capt Lockwood said. "I am pleased with the way things have been going and we have been very successful in the tasks that have come down to us."

British officials said one soldier had been killed in the fighting in and around Basra. The al-Jazeera television channel quoted an Iraqi commander who claimed that four British soldiers had been killed.