VIEW FROM SOUTHERN IRAQ: "Please don't shoot. We're here to help," a voice came out of the darkness. Three men approached the scimitar tank of an advanced British reconnaissance unit with their hands in the air.
"There are three missiles in our school and a tank behind our mosque," said the leader of the three men, before they began to retreat behind the bulrushes from where they had emerged.
"Who are you?" the officer in the tank asked.
The man turned back as he walked away and adjusted his headdress. "We are the A'dan and we have come to tell you these things because you must get rid of Saddam," he said.
British units patrolling the Shatt al-Basra, the waterway that flows a few miles north of Basra and marks the outer limit of the British advance into Iraq, have been receiving aid from unexpected sources.
Local Marsh Arabs, known as the A'dan, who live between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, have been coming forward to provide vital information on the location of enemy units.
On Saturday the British push to surround Basra had been stalled when tank squadrons belonging to the Scots Dragoon Guards came under fire and were unable to call in air support because of the number of Marsh Arabs in the area.
But now with the A'dan's aid and round-the-clock scouting missions by unmanned Phoenix drones, Iraqi outposts are being isolated and destroyed.
"It's one of the first signs we've had that the Iraqis actually want to help get rid of the regime. It's been a real morale booster," said a British officer.
The Marsh Arabs have more reason than most to hate the Iraqi regime.
"Saddam has destroyed us," said one called Yasin, at a picket on the outskirts of Basra.
He recalled how his homeland had been systematically destroyed over the past 20 years by a marsh drainage programme begun by the Iraqi regime to control flooding, though the A'dan believe the real intention was to quell a troublesome population.
A tribal people who lived from fishing in the marshes and harvesting bulrushes to feed cattle herds, the Marsh Arabs have always resisted control from Baghdad and played a key role in the uprising in southern Iraq after the first Gulf War.
Yasin now lives in a makeshift commune, one of a number to be built on the banks of the Shatt al-Basra during the relocations of thousands of Marsh Arabs.
The waterway, also known as Saddam's canal, was constructed as part of the drainage process, and has become a hated symbol of Saddam's oppression among the A'dan.
"Saddam knows that we will fight against him. That he is why he has tried to end our way of living. My father lived in a large reed mudhif (a reed hut). I live in a concrete house," said Yasin.
"If Saddam goes we can return to our normal way of living, in sha'allah (God willing). I wish the British every luck with their war."
His words of encouragement come on another difficult day for British forces in southern Iraq. After a night of violence in which on British sergeant was killed when he was shot at point blank range by a militiaman during a routine stop and search, yesterday morning a British command headquarters came under mortar fire. Three rounds were fired which shook the earth and had soldiers previously enjoying a mid-morning cup of tea diving for cover.
"Scud, no gas, no mortar," screamed one sentry.
"Haven't they worked out yet that we're here to help them?" asked Corp Richard Redhead from the safety of his vehicle, a sniper with the unit.
After the initial shock of the explosion, a car occupied by three men and a woman wearing black garments and red scarves was given chase.
The red and black is a uniform which is rapidly being adopted by local militia units - but also belongs to what the British military fear is the first wave of terrorists being sent to infiltrate allied controlled areas from Baghdad.
The attackers were found to have some currency and a green strip of cloth that may be a token to be exchanged for more money if they were successful in their raid.
"That's about enough money to buy two packets of cigarettes," said one soldier disgustedly.
As the dust settled, sentries went to investigate the building from where the mortars were fired: a first World War memorial, its names of war dead still decipherable.
The officer in charge of the squadron, Maj Matthew Botsford, said: "I suppose there's a certain irony in that, but thank God we won't be adding any more names to the list."