Ex-para Craig Allen continues his account of the time he spent in Iraq during the war
By early April 2003 3 Para were back at their base on a former Iraqi airfield south of Al Amarah having completed their task to secure the old quarter in Basra.
The fighting was essentially over but that didn’t mean life was peaceful. In fact the Battalion was now faced with bringing some kind of order and security to a huge swathe of territory in Maysan Province. Old scores were being settled on a daily basis and this, mixed with the easy availability of abandoned weaponry, made for a volatile mix.
I was woken one night to the sound of fighting to the west of us and could see tracer and the flashes of exploding mortar rounds on the horizon. This turned out to be two rival villages having a go at each other using heavy weapons picked up from the battlefield.
Trying to recover some of this weaponry became a major priority along with all the other demands on the battle group. The battlefield was also littered with numerous abandoned Iraqi AFVs many still armed and in working order.
In fact I discovered a BRDM complete with rocket system left under a flyover one day the spare missiles left lying in the blazing sun. The da…
