The soldiers of the Queen's Royal Hussars will today board a fleet of stripped-down Land Rovers, festooned with weapons and equipment, bound for the depths of the Iraqi desert.Their mission is to adopt tactics pioneered by the Long Range Desert Group, the forerunners of the SAS, more than six decades ago in the campaign against Rommel in North Africa. They will leave Camp Abu Naji, the only permanent base in Maysan province near the local capital of Amarah, and head into the remote region near the border with Iran.
Rather than staying in a fixed spot well known to enemy fighters in the most violent of all the Iraqi provinces under British control, they will live, camp and fight on the move. Roaming through the sparsely populated areas of Maysan, an area as large as Northern Ireland, they will travel without heavy armour that would become bogged down in the sand dunes and sleep under the stars.
Resupply will come from air drops or transport aircraft landing on temporary runways. Lt Col David Labouchere, the regiment's commander, said that when they needed to act they would "surge" from the wilderness. "Maysan is and will always be a problem child," he said. "These people are a little like Texans - armed and against anyone who is not one of them. They do not like foreigners and we are a foreign tribe in their midst."
The men are stoical about the prospect of living in gruelling desert conditions. One captain said: "Those who have been on desert training exercise are less keen. They know that after six days, you realise this is not so special after all. But it is good not to be a fixed target any more. Being here is very wearing on the nerves."
The Army stresses that this redeployment is not linked to constant mortar and rocket attacks on the old base of Camp Abu Naji. At least 281 mortars and rockets have hit the camp since the Hussars arrived in April. In the early months of the British presence, attacks were limited to one or two rounds a night. Now the Shia militiamen loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the fiercely anti-western cleric, have taken to firing barrages. One night in May, 54 mortar rounds detonated one after another.
Today the Union flag that has fluttered over the camp since the British arrived in April 2003 will be taken down and the base handed over to the local Iraqi authorities. Brig James Everard, the commander of British forces in south-eastern Iraq, stressed that responsibility for security in Maysan province would not be transferred to Iraqi control.
The adoption of tactics from an older era of British desert warfare would allow proper control of the border area for the first time, he said. America has frequently alleged that weapons and volunteers are being brought in by Iran. One of the first tasks of the Queen's Royal Hussars will be to discover whether this is true.