Iraqis held over death of captain

FOUR Iraqis were arrested yesterday over the killing of a British officer in a military ambulance bomb attack.

Captain David Jones, 29, of 1st Queen's Lancashire Regiment, died and two comrades were injured when their vehicle was blown up near Basra on Thursday.

The married captain, of Louth, Lincs, is the first British soldier to die since June 24 when six Royal Military Police were executed by a mob.

The arrests came as an influential Muslim cleric called for a "holy" uprising to kick British and US troops out of Iraq.

Sheik Muqtader Sadr, son of one of the country's most revered holy men, preached to more than 10,000 supporters in a mosque in a Baghdad suburb and branded the recently-formed Iraqi Governing Council "a puppet of America".

He also invited young Iraqis to join his "Al Mahdi Holy Army" to rid Iraq of the "American infidels".

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