BAGHDAD , 16 June 2004 — A pipeline blast near the southern Iraqi port city of Basra shut down oil exports from the area’s two terminals, Basra’s harbor master told AFP yesterday.
“After the sabotage attack, oil workers tried to use an alternate pipeline, but it could not support the pressure because it was an old installation dating back to the 1970s,” said Capt. Mowayad Hashem.
“After that, exports stopped from Basra oil terminal and Khor Al-Amaya.”
The blown-up line had a capacity of 50,000 barrels per hour, he said. The second, with a capacity of 30,000 barrels per hour, damaged when the oil started to flow.
Three tankers were loading when production stopped and two tankers were waiting in port.
The saboteurs struck at 11:50 a.m. (0750 GMT), blowing up a portion of the main pipeline to Basra’s terminal, Hashem said.
Earlier, interim Oil Minister Thamer Ghadban told AFP saboteurs had blown up a pipeline south of Basra.
This was at least the fourth attack on Iraq’s oil pipelines in nine days. Oil prices shot up after news of the sabotage.
Meanwhile, armed men in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah arrested at least six young Shiites and executed them on the orders of two religious figures in the town, representatives of Shiite tribes in southern Iraq said yesterday.
During a protest to which the remains of the six men were taken, some 200 southern Shiites handed out photographs of the bodies, which they said had also been mutilated by the attackers.
In other violent incidents, a series of explosions rocked a US base at the eastern entrance of the city of Karbala yesterday, while elsewhere more Iraqis were reported killed in separate attacks.
