Speaking in the House of Commons about the situation in Basra, Defence Secretary Des Browne said Iraqi security forces had on Sunday concluded a "sector by sector" clearance of the city, which was "returning to normal".

Mr Browne told MPs: "The current situation in Basra is that the grip of the militias has been broken with the leadership in flight or in hiding and huge quantities of illegal weaponry have been recovered."

He said there were "early but encouraging signs" that life in the city was "returning to normal".

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One hour later ....

Up to 20 rockets have been fired at the British base at Basra airport, say police in the southern Iraqi city.

No British personnel are reported to have been seriously injured in the attack, thought to have happened at about 1415 local time (1215 BST).

Iraqi and British Army units responded by sealing of part of the Zubair district of the city, from where the katyusha rockets had been fired.

Sad but so true.
Just chatting to a mate on MSN from Basra camp...been rockets coming in regularly until a while ago,then started again today.
Worked in Iraq myself(not Basra),and time to leave them to find their own peace.We've failed badly,time to be honest about it,and get out.

It also turns out that the "Al Quaeda leader in Iraq" - who was captured last week - was NOT captured after all !

edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/09/i...qaedafree/index.html

Mosul,one nasty place to be at the moment.
Still made good headlines for a day or so...even the beeb fell for it.
Win the war with headlines,then quietely deny it on the back pages.

Al Masri, called "the Egyptian" and also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, took the reins of Iraq's al Qaeda offshoot in June 2006.

Since then, Iraqi officials have reported his death three times, his capture twice and a mortal wounding once!!!