BAGHDAD, Iraq — Looters ravaged a former British base near the southern Iraq city of Amara on Friday, a day after the remaining troops abruptly pulled out in what followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr hailed as a victory over the "occupiers."
The scene at Camp Abu Naji was one of devastation, witnesses said, as the pillagers, some hoisting photos of al-Sadr, roamed the base that once hosted the Scots Dragoon Guards, and, more recently, the Queen's Royal Hussars. The base had been home to some 1,200 British troops who patrolled south-eastern Iraq.
"Everything that could be carried was taken," said an Iraqi Army major in Amara, who asked not to be named because of the delicate security situation in the city of 300,000, some 230 miles southeast of Baghdad. Items taken included furniture, generators, wooden doors, corrugated iron roofs and just about anything else that could be resold, the major said.
The British plan had been to turn the camp over to Iraqi authorities, but several Iraq officials told reporters that the sudden withdrawal on Thursday took them by surprise. Iraqi forces didn't have enough time to secure the facility before the looters swooped in, Iraqis officials said.
Confronted by Iraqi troops, the Iraqi major said, some looters continued to ransack the base, taunting the security men by saying, "Shoot Me!" They then burned what remained of the facility, which had been an Iraqi Army camp before the British moved in following the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
There was no immediate word on casualties.
Commander Jane Allen, a British military spokesman in Baghdad, attributed the pillaging to poor residents seeking items for resale, and not to political motivations. "The prospect of gaining access to equipment ... is likely to have been too much to resist," the statement said.
In a statement earlier this month, the camp commander, Lt. Col. David Labouchere, had said the move would be completed "by mid-September."
It was unclear Friday why the British had apparently advanced their departure date, but supporters of al-Sadr—whose militia forces have frequently clashed with the British—said the British had been chased out.
The camp had suffered numerous mortar strikes in recent days, attacks widely believed linked to al-Sadr's militia, the al-Mahdi Army. Al-Sadr's allies are a powerful political force in Amara, long a strategic gateway to neighboring Iran, and other parts of southern Iraq, where most residents also are Shiites.
Wild celebrations broke out among al-Sadr supporters as word of the British pullout became known.
"The Sadr movement rejects the occupation and its presence," said Sheikh Aba Dar, an al-Sadr advocate in Amara.
British authorities have described the pullout as having two aims: turning over regional security to British-trained Iraqi forces and repositioning troops to counter the weapons-smuggling threat from Iran. British border patrols once based at the camp will spread out to the deserts and marshes of Maysan province, of which Amara is the capital, authorities said.
U.S. officials have expressed increasing concern in recent months that anti-U.S. Shiite militias have been receiving arms and bomb-making material from Iran, a Shiite-dominated nation which has close links to the major Shiite political parties now holding political power in Iraq. Shiite militias have been prime suspects in the epidemic of death-squad killings that have been ravaging Iraq.