BASRA, Iraq – More than 1,000 protesters burned a British flag Tuesday and the regional administration in Iraq’s main southern province severed all ties with British authorities over video footage showing British soldiers allegedly beating and kicking Iraqi youths.

In London, the British Defense Ministry announced the arrest of two more people in connection with the images. Another person – apparently the man who shot the video – was arrested Monday.

Protesters, many of them supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, marched on the British Consulate in Basra, where they burned a British flag and shouted slogans against the alleged abuse of the youths during a riot Jan. 10, 2004, in the southern city of Amarah.

Protesters held banners reading “No, no to Tony Blair” and “Try the British soldiers involved in this aggression.”

With outrage over the video mounting, the governing council for Basra province, which includes Iraq’s huge southern oil fields, announced it was cutting all ties with British military and civilian operations in the area, headquarters of Britain’s more than 8,000-member military contingent in Iraq.

The Basra police chief, Maj. Gen. Hassan Suwadi, said Iraqi security forces would cease joint patrols with the British military in the province to protest the alleged abuse.

“We condemn the abuse of the British forces and demand the British government to adopt legal procedures as soon as possible to punish its soldiers who carried out the abuse,” Suwadi told The Associated Press.

Elsewhere, gunmen killed 11 Shiite farmers north of Baghdad, including eight members of one family, officials said. A U.S. Marine was killed and six coalition personnel were wounded in two attacks in Baghdad.

In Amarah, about 100 miles north of Basra, two Iraqis who claimed to have been beaten on the video – Bassem Shaker and Tariq Abdul-Razzak – told reporters they would seek compensation from Britain, which occupied Iraq for decades after the country was established following World War I.

The beatings allegedly occurred during a violent protest in Amarah by hundreds of people demanding jobs. Six people were killed and 11 injured, according to reports at the time.

“I was one of 250 unemployed people demonstrating in the street in 2004, but when we reached the governor’s office we were surprised by the presence of the British forces,” Shaker said. “We started throwing stones at them because we believed that they were behind all our misery.”

Shaker said British troops “were beating us with fists and batons and were kicking us” before taking the prisoners to a British base “where they also beat us and frightened us with dogs before releasing us before sunset.”

He said he didn’t report the treatment because he did not believe any officials would deal with their complaints.