BAGHDAD, March 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Although reporters on the ground continue to deny, British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon claimed Wednesday, March 26, that Iraqi militia have attacked their own citizens in the southern city of Basra after people staged an uprising against the regime.

"Certainly there have been disturbances, local people rising up against the regime. We know that there have been attempts by regime militia to attack those same people, their own people, to attack them with mortars, machine-gun fire, rifles." Hoon alleged in an interview with the BBC radio, adding this information came "from various sources".

Shortly after first propagating the claim late Tuesday, March 25, British forces bombarded the Shia population and a 2,000-lb bomb was dropped on the city headquarters, The Guardian newspaper said.

Several reporters embedded in the city denied said there were no signs of a rebellion, raising speculations the alleged uprising was used as a pretext to wage British attacks against a densely-populated city suffering a humanitarian crisis after more than three days of Anglo-American siege.

A reporter for the Al-Jazeera television channel inside the city said he could find no sing of a popular uprising.

“There are no indications in the city that people rose up against the regime, and a state of cam prevails in the city… no violence,” the correspondent for the Qatar-based channel said.

The Arabic station showed images of people queuing peacefully for gas bottles.

The Iraqi government also vehemently dismissed the claims of the revolt as "lies" aimed at demoralising the Iraqi people, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.

But Hoon said British forces had taken "certain measures . . . to reduce the number (of Iraqis) acting against their own people," referring to artillery and air strikes by the British troops.

Meeting ferocious resistance from the city inhabitants, frustrated British forces said taking Basra has become a military objective allegedly to get humanitarian aid to civilians there.

Iraqi officials, however, assured the city was in no need for urgent humanitarian relief supplies.

The Iraqi trade minister said each family stockpiled enough supplies for six months.

But British forces propagated the rebellion allegation to justify their massive raids on the city as a sort of intervention to help the Iraqi people against their regime.

"There has been a civilian uprising in the north of Basra," claimed a British officer outside the key strategic city.

"We have seen a large crowd on the streets. The Iraqis are firing their own artillery at their own people. There will be carnage," the officer added.

On Monday, March 24, U.S. and British forces were bogged down in fierce battles for the strategic southern Iraqi cities of An-Nasiriyah and Basra.

In another related development, Reporters Without Borders organization called on the U.S. to guarantee that the media can work freely and in safety in the current war against Iraq.

In a report obtained by IslamOnline.net, the press freedom organization expressed concern at working conditions for journalists who chose not to be officially incorporated into the U.S. military operations and who U.S. officials had several times warned could be in danger.

It called on the U.S. authorities to “avoid targeting transmitters of Iraqi radio stations and Iraqi media offices, including those used to put out propaganda.”

“Media property and equipment are civil property protected under international humanitarian law. Propaganda aims to buoy the morale of the population and is a part of all conflicts. The morale of the civilian population must not be a military target” asserted Reporters Without Borders.

"If the military says something, I strongly urge all journalists to heed it," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer on Friday, February 28. "It is in your own interest and your family's interest. And I mean that."

The organization welcomed the U.S. invitation to more than 600 journalists from all over the world to report from inside the military operation.

This policy of "embedding," presented by officials as giving journalists unprecedented access since the Vietnam war, would theoretically provide better coverage than was allowed during the 1991 Gulf War, it said.

But it queried whether the obligatory written promise to obey a strict 50-point "ground rules agreement" would allow these journalists enough freedom and independence in their reporting.

“The rules spell out what can or cannot be covered. But the distinction is very vague and commanders of military units are given the final word on whether to allow something to be reported or not,” said the organization in a report.

“It is also concerned about rule 6, that permits unit commanders to "embargo" news that may damage "operational security." The range of such news is also poorly defined and the duration of the embargo not stated. Both aspects again depend on the decision of the unit commander.”

“Rules 40, 41 and 43, which ban pictures of the faces of prisoners of war and soldiers killed in the fighting, undermine the right to inform the public, the organization said. It was up to journalists, not the U.S. army, to decide what could or could not be shown, according to the journalistic code of conduct.

The organization’s report said the public had a right to see pictures such as those of the emaciated faces of prisoners in Serbian concentration camps in Bosnia, during the war in Yugoslavia.