Google News Reuters - BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - British forces killed seven gunmen and blew up the headquarters of the police serious crimes unit in southern Basra on Monday in a raid to rescue prisoners who were about to be executed, the British military said. Calling the police station a centre of "criminal enterprise" and a symbol of oppression for the city's residents, the military said the building was demolished with explosives after a pre-dawn assault by around 1,000 troops backed by tanks.

Many of its 127 prisoners, all suspected criminals, were found crowded into a small cell, living in "appalling conditions", the military said. A number had crushed feet or hands and gunshot wounds to the knee, apparent signs of torture.
British military spokesman Captain Tane Dunlop said the unit had been taking the law into its own hands. "Crimes unit? That's pretty much what it does, rather than prevent," he told Reuters.
Shi'ite militias vying for control of the oil-rich city are suspected of infiltrating police in Basra. Washington accuses Shi'ite Iran of backing Shi'ite militias in a spiralling conflict with minority Sunnis that threatens all-out civil war.
Iraq's Kurdish president Jalal Talabani on Monday protested the arrest by U.S. forces of two Iranian diplomats who U.S. officials say were seized in raids against Iranians suspected of planning attacks on Iraqi security forces.
"The president is unhappy. The diplomats came to Iraq at the invitation of the president," Talabani's media adviser, Hiwa Othman, told Reuters
"The unit, some 400-strong, was known to have been heavily infiltrated by anti-coalition elements," the British military said in a statement.
The military had planned to disband the unit but decided to act on Monday after learning that some of the prisoners in the police station were about to be killed, Burbridge said.
British officials said Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Basra governor Mohammed Waili had approved the dissolution of the unit, but it was unclear whether they had endorsed Monday's operation.
Basra's police chief, Brigadier Mohammed al-Musawi, accused the British of trying to "stir up trouble" and said he had not been told of the raid beforehand. The Iraqi Defence Ministry, however, said in Baghdad it had consented to the operation.
Britain has around 7,300 troops in southern Iraq, mostly stationed in and around Basra and hopes to hand over control of the province to Iraqi authorities between April and June 2007.