From combined dispatches
BAGHDAD — British troops and armor rolled north from Basra yesterday to take over a deadly area near Baghdad and free up U.S. troops for a widely expected attack on the Iraqi rebel-held city of Fallujah.
A column with Warrior armored vehicles on flatbed trucks took to the road, a Reuters news agency photographer said. The Warriors were fitted with an extra slat of armor to deflect rocket-propelled grenades — a weapon of choice for guerrillas in Iraq.
“The deployment has begun,” said a British Defense Ministry spokesman. “For operational reasons I can give no further details. But they will be back for Christmas.”
About 850 British troops, mainly from the Black Watch regiment, are deploying in a restive region just south of Baghdad, allowing U.S. troops to reinforce units fighting guerrillas in the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah and elsewhere.
U.S. forces would spearhead any assault on Fallujah, which Iraq’s U.S.-backed interim government has vowed to retake as part of a drive to pacify the country before national assembly elections planned for January.
As the redeployment took place, Al Jazeera television broadcast video of a kidnapped aid worker making another plea for her life.
The tape showed a distraught Margaret Hassan, the 59-year-old head of CARE International in Iraq, blinking back tears as she spoke.
“Please don’t bring the [British] soldiers to Baghdad. Take them away. Please, on top of that, please release the women prisoners,” she said. Mrs. Hassan has joint Irish, British and Iraqi citizenship.
It was the third video released since Mrs. Hassan was kidnapped on her way to work in Baghdad a week ago.
In the latest video, Mrs. Hassan also called on CARE International to close its offices in Iraq. The organization has suspended its activities since her Oct. 19 abduction.
No group has taken responsibility for her abduction. But followers of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi had made the same demand for the release of female prisoners in the abduction of two Americans and a Briton last month. All three were beheaded.
Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to agree to the U.S. request for redeployment is politically sensitive for the British leader, whose popularity has plummeted because of his support for the Iraq war.
Britain’s 8,500 troops are based around the southern city of Basra in a relatively peaceful area of Iraq. Sixty-eight British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, compared with more than 1,000 U.S. troops.
British lawmakers have opposed moving the troops into U.S.-controlled areas, saying it would place them in more danger.
Elsewhere, a motorcycle bomber attacked a U.S. convoy in central Iraq, killing one American soldier and wounding another.
Also, one person was killed and three were wounded when a bomb exploded near their vehicle yesterday morning on the road to Baghdad’s airport, a U.S. official said. The victims’ nationalities were not available.
U.S. forces have been increasing raids in Sunni insurgent areas to the north, south and west of the capital in recent months in a bid to stabilize Iraq ahead of national elections in January. The U.S. military said yesterday that Iraqi forces, backed by Marines, captured 18 insurgents in a sweep through the central town of Haswah.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Blair repeated his pledge that the Black Watch contingent would be home in Scotland by Christmas. However, he didn’t rule out further British deployments in the area.
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