"Under Saddam I could sleep safe in my bed, but not any more," an old woman lamented in Basra

BASRA, April 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - British forces in southern Iraq said Wednesday, April 9, that they have asked a tribal leader to take over as the "mayor" of Basra as they faced criticism for failure to prevent a looting spree after their capture of the country's second city.

Senior British officers had met with a "sheikh", whom they refused to name, who would draw up an interim committee to run the city after the collapse of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's authority, British spokesman Colonel Chris Vernon revealed.

"He will form, at present, the leadership within the Basra province and we have asked him to form from the local community a committee that he thinks is representative of local people," Vernon was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.

The new leader, understood to be a widely respected Shiite Muslim who walked into a British camp shortly after the first tanks entered the city on Saturday, April 5, joined a post-war planning conference with divisional commanders on Tuesday, April 8.

British forces are to give him the authority to recruit aides, including the ruling Baath party members, to consolidate his power base.

"We have ascertained that he is worthwhile, credible and has authority in the local area, particularly with the tribal chiefs," Vernon said.

"We asked him to go away and form an initial committee to achieve a degree of civil administration."

The human toll of the fighting between the British and diehard Iraqi resistance fighters was evident in the city's Saddam Teaching Hospital.

Surgeon Muayad Jumah said that more than 1,000 people had been wounded in the battle for the city, many women and children.

Rampant Looting

The looted Basra Sheraton Hotel

But there is a desperate shortage of water, electricity or gas, compounded by looters interrupting the supply of aid to the city inhabitants.

The shortages do not yet appear to be life-threatening, but as thousands of people draw unpurified water from the Shatt al-Arab waterway, aid agencies fear an outbreak of disease.

Vernon said that British forces would now seek to prevent a repetition of the widespread looting that was seen in Basra on Monday, April 7, after thousands of British forces swept into the city at the end of a near two-week encirclement.

British forces did not intervene in the looting spree because their primary mission was combat, he said.

They have so far only intervened by firing warning shots in certain circumstances.

Their inaction has angered many civilians, but they claim they have not enough resources to act as a police force.

The owner of Basra's main Sheraton Hotel was furious with the British for not stopping looters trashing his business, stealing beds, furniture and electronic equipment.

"For three days we had asked the British to patrol this area to bring some tanks in here, but they didn't do it," Riyadh al-Ammar said.

"Everything has been stolen," he added as smoke smoldered from the roof of the building.

One woman, whose home was 50 yards from a British military base, cried "the British said they have come to liberate us, but now I cannot sleep safely in my bed because these robbers have said they will kill us and take all of our house."

She pointed to the other side of the street, where a gang of young men was stripping everything from a building. They took away doors, light fittings, flooring.

"Under Saddam I could sleep safe in my bed, but not any more," she told The Times correspondent in the city.

Vernon said Saddam and his ruling Baath party were now a spent force in Basra.

"Basra is now free and final elements of the vicious Baathist control is now extinguished," he told reporters in Kuwait City.

Elsewhere, British forces in southern Iraq have made their furthest advance north and crossed the River Euphrates, the BBC News Online reported.

The 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment has reached Al Qurnah, which is said to be the site of the biblical Garden of Eden and the birthplace of mankind.

Irish troops were in an area populated by the persecuted Marsh Arabs.