BAGHDAD, 17 August 2003 — Saboteurs blew up a major pipeline and stopped all oil flow from Iraq to Turkey, just three days after the pipeline between the two countries was reopened. In continued attacks on US forces, two US soldiers were wounded north of Baghdad.
Thamer Al-Ghadaban, Iraq’s acting oil minister, said at a news conference that the 1.16-meter-diameter pipeline was “blown up” early Friday, sparking a fire that still raged yesterday.
US soldiers were helping Iraqi oil workers contain the fire outside the northern town of Baiji on a section of the 950-km (600-mile) pipeline from the northern city of Kirkuk to the Turkish city of Ceyhan. “It could take several days to repair it and put it back in operation. It is a large pipeline with large volume of crude oil,” Al-Ghadaban said.
A Turkish energy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had earlier attributed the disruption in oil flow to “telecommunications problems” and dismissed the possibility of sabotage, which has plagued Iraq’s pipelines for months.
Crude oil began flowing through the pipeline on Wednesday, and Turkish officials said 350,000 barrels of oil was pumped that day.
Iraq has the world’s second-largest proven crude reserves, at 112 billion barrels, but its pipelines, pumping stations and oil reservoirs are dilapidated after more than a decade of neglect. Northern Iraq, site of the giant Kirkuk oil fields, accounts for 40 percent of Iraq’s oil production.
A US soldier was slightly wounded early yesterday when his patrol came under attack in a village near the town of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. “The soldier’s convoy came under attack from a suspected improvised explosive device, small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenade just after midnight (2000 GMT Friday),” said Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald of the Fourth Infantry Division, speaking from the town of Tikrit. The patrol returned fire and a supporting helicopter fired missiles at the attackers, he said, adding that he had no reports of Iraqi casualties.
In another incident on Friday, a US military intelligence soldier was wounded when his convoy hit an IED northwest of Baghdad, an army spokesman said. A soldier was wounded when a convoy was attacked three kilometers northwest of Baghdad, the spokesman said.
