# The British Army in Iraq; Al Amarah August 04



## Diphenhydramine (Apr 9, 2010)

The British Army in Iraq; Al Amarah August 04​
In August of 2004, the British Army fought its most desperate and fierce engagement since the Korean War of the early 1950s. Yet CIMIC House is barely known in Britain and the US. It was covered up by the MoD because the official line was that there was "no war in Iraq" post-liberation.

The town of Al-Amarah is about fifty kilometres south of Baghdad. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Al Amarah rose up against Saddam Hussein in violent insurrection and was shortly liberated by advancing elements of the British Army. Not long afterwards, mass graves were dug up from when Iraqi Security Forces conducted "operations" in the area. 

It didn't take long for the Mehdi Army under Moqtada al-Sadr to rise up against the British occupation, attacking foot patrols and killing six soldiers. Al Amarah was also the location of CIMIC House; the Headquarters of the Civil-Military Co-Operation for the British-led Multi-National Division which also consisted of Australians and Poles. It shortly became a target for al-Sadr's militants.

Defending CIMIC House was Y Company of the Prince of Wales Royal Regiment, Territorial Army reservist soldiers, and two platoons from the Royal Fusiliers. In total, just about a hundred British troops occupied CIMIC House.










_British troops occupying the roof of CIMIC House_​
Arrayed against them, Al-Sadr mustered five hundred militants, equipped with small arms, rocket propelled grenades and mortars. He surrounded CIMIC House and cut off the British troops there from resupply. Several times tanks and armoured vehicles attempted to get into CIMIC House to resupply the troops there, but most of the time were driven away by fierce resistance from the militants. CIMIC House, then, was largely on its own, with its back to the river Tigris and the front surrounded by angry militants with Kalashnikovs.










_Mehdi Army militants armed with RPG-7s_​
The battle lasted from 5th August to 28th August. The Mehdi Army militants, led by Al-Sadr, launched 86 seperate ground assaults in an effort to take CIMIC House. They launched 595 mortar rounds in 230 seperate bombardments and achieved 57 direct hits with rocket propelled weapons. 

That's 3.7 ground assaults every day and 10 mortar attacks every day. In return, British troops fired 33,000 rounds during the entire battle. The militants attacked in human wave formations, throwing themselves at the defences of CIMIC House; the closest they ever got was thirty metres. 

Multinational Division Headquarters offered Major Featherstone an opportunity to withdraw from the battered CIMIC House. He turned down the opportunity. He said; "None of the lads wanted to leave... It would also have meant defeat and our pride wouldn't let us do that."

So CIMIC House fought on. In 23 days of fierce fighting, conservative estimates state they killed 200 Mehdi Army militants. The British troops held onto CIMIC House. On August 28th, the Mehdi Army ceased their assaults and withdrew to lick their wounds: Al Sadr had been handed a decisive defeat by the British Army in the field. The defenders of CIMIC House suffered six wounded and one dead; Private Chris Rayment, when a traffic barrier collapsed and fell onto his head. It took the militants four years to recover the strength they had lost in the August of 2004.


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