The Battle of Danny Boy took place at Al Amara in Iraq on 14 May 2004, between British soldiers and about 100 Iraqi insurgents, members of the Mahdi Army.[1]
The insurgents ambushed a patrol of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders close to a checkpoint known as Danny Boy near Majar Al Kabir.[2] The Argylls called in reinforcements from the 1st Battalion of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, they were also ambushed and due to an electronic communications failure it was some time before further British relief arrived. While waiting for reinforcements the British were involved in one of the fiercest engagements they fought in Iraq. The fighting involving close-quarter rifle fire and bayonets.[3][4] The fighting lasted for about three hours during which the British Army reported that 28 Iraqis were killed, and that the British suffered some wounded but that none were killed in the action.[2]
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Sergeant Brian Wood, of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment was awarded the Military Cross for his part in the battle.[4]
On the 25 November 2009, Bob Ainsworth, then the British Minister of State for the Armed Forces, announced that a retired High Court judge Sir Thayne Forbes would chair the Al Sweady inquiry into allegations that 20 Iraqis, taken prisoner during the battle, were murdered and that others were tortured. The British Ministry of Defence denies that the 20 were captured, but that 20 bodies were removed from the battlefield for identification and then returned to the families and that a further nine were taken prisoner and held for questioning but were not mistreated.[5][6]