Iraqi border guards arrest British national with 9 Iraqi "terrorists" in desert
Source: AFP
October 4, 2005 Author: Staff
Colin Peter,a British national who was arrested yesterday in southern Iraq, looks on at the Najaf, Iraq, police station Tuesday Oct.4 2005. A spokesman for the Iraqi border police in Najaf, said Peter, an engineer, and 10 Iraqis were carrying weapons and surveillance equipment in several vehicles when police stopped them on a road between the Saudi border and the Iraqi city of Najaf and took the Briton into custody because he had entered Iraq without a required visa.(AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)
NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - A British national has been arrested by Iraqi border guards near the Saudi border in Najaf province, British and Iraqi officials said.
"We can confirm that a UK national has been arrested by the Iraqi department of border enforcement," a British military spokesman said on Tuesday, adding the Foreign Office was investigating the arrest which was believed to have taken place on Monday night.
An Iraqi border guards spokesman in Najaf, Saadun al-Jaaberi, said guards arrested "a terrorist group consisting of 10 people, including one British national called Colin Peter, near Mathlum, near the Saudi border".
The other nine were Iraqis from the southern city of Basra, he said.
The group was armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and were carrying a video camera, a satellite telephone and GPS satellite-tracking device, Jaaberi added.
The British embassy in Baghdad could not immediately be reached for comment.
