Monty Python Cloak-and-Dagger

Oh bloody hell. Well we'd better give ourselves up then.

It's all very simple, you see. The very best way for a British spy team to run a checkpoint manned by rebels disguised police is to disguise the team as Marsh Arabs and put them in a white Toyota. The police impersonators are foiled by the Arab impersonators, especially when the Arab impersonators open fire on the police impersonators as they fling an otter. It would only go wrong if the police, uh, turn out real police but even then it certainly woundn't cost us two parrots, two £1 million tanks and a city-wide riot.

The Story:

Update: Disguised Brits slay two *real* Iraq police. British tanks demolish jail, freeing one hundred *real* criminals. Head-hunter hockey, anyone?

Two British soldiers on an espionnage mission dressed as Arabs wearing wigs, sunglasses and dishdashas were arrested by Iraqi police in Basrah after they opened fire on a police patrol when their car was stopped at a checkpoint. Unhappy about the arrest of the spies, the British military sent eight tanks to surround the police station in the center of Basrah where the two were being held. Hearing about the standoff, a Shi'ite mob assembled and in turn surrounded the tanks, setting fire to two after driving off the crews.

At a recent military briefing in Basra, an AFP correspondent was told British soldiers had been ordered not to stop at Iraqi police checkpoints because of fear that rebels could be posing as Iraqi police.