BAGHDAD - More than 1,000 British troops backed up by tanks carried out a dawn raid on Friday to seize an Iraqi police chief accused of leading a death squad that slaughtered 17 police trainers.
Under cover of thick fog, the soldiers were able to approach several addresses in the port city of Basra undetected and seize seven suspects without a shot being fired, military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said.
"The purpose of this raid is not just to apprehend this individual, but it is a precursor to disbanding the Serious Crimes Unit of the Basra police," he said by telephone from the restive southern city.
Burbridge said that British forces, with the support of Iraqi leaders, had found evidence that the unit was involved in "death squad activities" and had decided to wind it up, starting with Friday's raid.
Some of the seven detainees may be released after questioning, he said, but enough evidence was found to make a case against the group's leader, long a thorn in the side of the British presence in southern Iraq.
On October 29, unidentified gunmen ambushed a bus carrying 17 employees of a British-run police training academy back to their homes in Basra.
The passengers were massacred and their bodies dumped around the Shuaiba area in what was seen as an attempt to intimidate local residents and as a direct challenge to the British mission to pacify the region.
Burbridge said that the prime suspect seized on Friday - whom he did not identify - was thought to have been involved in the attack and that evidence gathered at the scene of the raid was thought to be enough to hold him.
The British force in Basra has long had problems with the local police, to whom they one day hope to hand over security responsibility for the city, especially with the notorious Serious Crimes Unit.
Many Iraqi police forces are known to be infiltrated by Shiite militias, which use police uniforms and weapons to pursue private political battles, and carry out sectarian killings against the country's Sunni minority.
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