'Charlie's Angels' patrol border with Iran

By Sarah Oliver in Al Amara THESE are Charlie's Angels - three women helping to bring law and order to bandit country on the Iran- Iraq border.

Corporal Jo Richardson, Lance Corporal Tammy Wickett and Corporal Gwen Hatton earned their nickname because they answer to Sergeant- Major Charlie Fyffe.

The three "Red Caps" - Royal Military Police officers - are patrolling the liberated city of Al Amara. They have surprised locals in what is a fundamentalist Muslim area where women appear in public only in black robes which cover them from hairline to ankles.

"We're all pretty robust, you have to be to survive as a Red Cap," said Jo, 24, a former Edinburgh bouncer. "We have a major role to play here because law and order have collapsed and it is our job to restore it."

Tammy, 23, an Army rugby player from Birmingham, added: "We are horrified by a lot of things we have seen, not just the crime but the poverty, and we are determined to help."

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