AL-MAJAR AL-KABIR, Iraq, June 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Infuriated by British soldiers who stormed their houses with dogs allegedly looking for resistance fighters or weapons, Iraqi residents battled the occupation soldiers killing six soldiers and loosing four civilians, eyewitness confirmed Wednesday, June 25.

"We are a Muslim country and we cannot accept the British entering and searching our houses with dogs," Saad Hussein, 28, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The defense ministry in London said the six dead soldiers were members of the Royal Military Police based in Colchester, in Essex, southeast England, and attached to 16 Air Assault Brigade.

They were identified Wednesday as Sergeant Simon Alexander Hamilton-Jewell, Corporal Russell Aston, Corporal Paul Graham Long, Corporal Simon Miller, Lance-Corporal Benjamin John McGowan Hyde, and Lance-Corporal Thomas Richard Keys.

Another eight Britons and 17 Iraqis were injured in firefights with the British troops who were confronted by a crowd of around 300 people in the town of al-Majar al-Kabir, north of Iraq's second city of Basra.

Resident Salah Mohammed said that shooting occurred in a market square where British troops opened fire; a building behind the market place where two soldiers were killed; and then at a police station where four soldiers had taken refuge.

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons that the security situation in Iraq was "still obviously serious."

Taking questions in the House of Commons on the first British combat fatalities since the end of the Iraq war, Blair, however said that he was told earlier Wednesday by Chief of Defense Staff Sir Michael Walker that British commanders inside Iraq felt they had enough troops on the ground.

"The local commanding officers believe they have the troops sufficient for the job," he said.

"I would point out there are some 14,000 British troops in (the overall Gulf) theatre, and 10,000 in Iraq. We are also now bringing in forces from other countries as well," Blair told parliament.

"Indeed, over the next few weeks 19 or 20 different countries will be participating and the total force from those countries will be several thousand men," he said.

"So we are trying to make sure that at every level we have the troop requirements that we need."

The prime minister said that by midday (1100 GMT) Thursday, June 26, "we should know far more" about the circumstances of Tuesday's incident in al-Majar al-Kabir, in British-controlled southern Iraq.

But he suggested that the incident might have been the result of attempts by British forces to disarm Iraqis around the town, which is near al-Amarah, midway between Baghdad and Basra.

"There had been problems in relation to that, and that may form part of the background to it but at the moment it is simply too early to say," Blair said.

On Iraq as a whole, Blair said: "There are real problems, but there are also real improvements."

"Progress is being made but it is a job literally of rebuilding a country and it will take time. I think it is necessary to take the time to get the job done," he said.

Trying to downplay the mounting Iraqi resistance in the war-scarred country, a senior British army officer in Baghdad told AFP that the killing of the six British Royal Military Police soldiers was not a sign of a general increase in local resistance or deteriorating security.

"In terms of whether it's a signpost to the future and what may happen, it's too early to say definitely, but the early indication is that it is not," the officer said on condition of anonymity.

"The incident is under investigation. If there's any plan or change to the way we do our business down there, that decision will be taken by the commanders" on the ground, he added.