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Iraqi pipeline burns and residents blame sabotage

Fires blazed on a major pipeline from Iraq's northern oilfields yesterday after what residents said were twin bomb attacks aimed at sabotaging exports through Turkey.

Two separate fires were seen on the pipeline, 15km from the key refinery town of Baiji, close to the main highway between Baghdad and the northern regional capital of Mosul.

Residents at the nearby Al-Amin coffee shop said the pipeline had been attacked by Iraqis using explosives around 8:45pm on Thursday, the same day Iraq awarded its first postwar oil export contracts.

"We heard two explosions and ran," said the coffee shop's owner, Abu Ala. "We saw fire shooting out of the pipeline in two places. Shortly afterward two American helicopters arrived."

Customers said it had been a deliberate act of sabotage.

"Some Iraqis came and blew it up," said Kazem Ibrahim.

Khidr Aziz said, "It's to stop the Americans taking the oil out to Turkey."

Less than an hour's drive north of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's native city of Tikrit, the mainly Sunni Arab region around Baiji was considered a stronghold of his Sunni-dominated regime and several residents expressed hostility to the US-led occupation.

On Thursday, Iraq's US-led administration awarded a raft of contracts to international oil companies to lift crude, the first since the US-led war.
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