BAGHDAD, 19 August 2003 — A dozen former Iraqi soldiers were killed when an ammunition dump they were looting blew up, locals said yesterday.

Two other Iraqis were gunned down by US forces after ignoring warning shots in two separate incidents, the military said.

The 12 were reported killed in the explosion at a storage dump of confiscated ammunition on the outskirts of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.

“Twelve people were killed in the explosion and they were all unemployed men who had been officers in the army,” said Kazem Hassan, 32, a former tank regiment sergeant. The military confirmed the incident but could only confirm that one body had been found in the aftermath. “A team of investigators recovered the remains of one unidentified body,” said Col. Bill MacDonald, spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division, which controls northern Iraq. He added that no US troops or equipment were lost in the explosion. The accident took place in two explosions Sunday evening, the military said, but US troops kept the Iraqi police and firefighters away from the scene until the fires and chain-reaction blasts had subsided at 11:00 a.m.yesterday.

Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel said the men had broken into the dump to loot copper from artillery and other shells, which they would then resell.

MacDonald also said US troops had shot dead two Iraqis in separate incidents on Sunday in the northern region. One, who the military said was caught looting in southwest Tikrit, was shot after ignoring warning shots. The second died of his wounds after his car was disabled by US military personnel as he tried to run through a roadblock in Han Bani Sa’d, just north of Baghdad.

In eastern Baghdad, water supplies were running again through a mains pipe believed attacked on Sunday by saboteurs, although it was unclear if the 300,000 homes affected were again receiving running water.

Meanwhile, US Army engineers battled a blaze yesterday on Iraq’s main oil export pipeline after two attacks by saboteurs last week set it on fire.

US officials say supporters of Saddam Hussein are behind acts of sabotage on oil and water pipelines. Paul Bremer, the US governor of Iraq, said that Iraq was losing $7 million a day because of the sabotage of the export pipeline to Turkey. The pipeline reopened last Wednesday but was shut down two days later after a blaze erupted. A second fire broke out nearby late on Saturday.

US Army engineers were using helicopters yesterday to douse the flames with water, as a column of thick black smoke rose into the sky above the northern Iraqi desert. “There are miles and miles of pipeline. You can’t protect every part all the time,” said US soldier James Hall, looking into the deep orange flames billowing skywards. Officials said it could be two weeks before the pipeline was working again.

Food Rations: Iraq’s de facto trade minister Yousif Al-Ani said yesterday that the distribution of monthly food rations, which began during the rule of Saddam Hussein, should continue for at least a year.