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Insurgents attack patrols, oil pipeline

Iraqi children play in the Valley of Peace cemetery in the city of Najaf yesterday. The cemetery - the largest in the world - was the scene of intense fighting in recent months between US troops and fighters loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. PHOTO: AFP

Insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades from a mosque at US troops in northern Iraq yesterday, sparking clashes that left two dead and 34 wounded, the military said.

Army Captain Angela Bowman said patrolling US forces were attacked twice before dawn near Tal Afar, about 50km west of Mosul. Soldiers returned fire during both assaults, killing two of the attackers, she said. No US casualties were reported.

Provincial health chief Rabie Yasin al-Khalil said 32 people were injured in the clashes.

Citing a doctor at a hospital in Tal Afar, the US military said 34 civilians were wounded, 26 of them women and children, "by flying debris and broken glass during the attacks on multinational forces.

Many civilians were sleeping on their rooftops to escape the summer heat."

The military said troubles began at 3am when insurgents fired eight rocket-propelled grenades at a passing US patrol. Seven of the RPG rounds were fired from a nearby mosque, the statement said.

Guerrillas attacked again three hours later, also from the mosque, and US troops fired back, killing two assailants, the statement said.

Meanwhile, saboteurs blew up an export pipeline in southern Iraq on Sunday in the latest in a series of attacks targeting the volatile country's crucial oil industry, a senior oil official said.

The explosion occurred in al-Radgha, about 50km southwest of Basra, an official at the state-run South Oil Co said on condition of anonymity.

The pipeline, which connects the Rumeila oilfields with export storage tanks in the Faw peninsula, was ablaze after the attack and emergency workers were struggling to put the fire out, the official said.

Insurgents have launched repeated attacks on Iraq's vital oil industry in a bid to undermine the interim government and reconstruction efforts.

On Saturday, insurgents blew up another pipeline in the West Qurna oilfields, about 150km north of Basra.

Also Saturday, a domestic oil pipeline in Nahrawan, a desert region 20 miles east of Baghdad, was ablaze, though oil officials could not confirm if the fire was the result of sabotage. The pipeline transports oil to the Dora refinery near the capital.

It was unclear how the latest attack would effect exports out of the south, which have already fallen to about 900,000 barrels a day -- about half the normal average of 1.8 million barrels a day -- after an attack Wednesday on a cluster of pipelines linked to the Rumeila oilfields.
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