Basra Battle between Mahdi Army and British
In apparent retaliation for the killing of their commander, Mahdi Army militiamen launched a fierce 2 and a half-hour assault on a British base in the southern Shiite city of Basra. The British military must have been alarmed by the assault, since they called in an air strike on the militiamen. Basra crowds said that the airstrike killed 8 innocent civilians and held a public funeral procession for them.
You have the sense that both politically and militarily, the British are hanging on in Basra by their fingernails.