With the US' Sept. 11 Commission announcing that it had found "no credible evidence" that Iraq and al-Qaeda had cooperated in attacks against the US, saboteurs in Iraq blasted a key pipeline yesterday for the second time in as many days, halting oil exports, officials said.
Gunmen killed the top security official of the state-run Northern Oil Co as insurgents stepped up attacks on Iraq's infrastructure.
The attack yesterday north of the town of Faw crippled two already damaged pipelines, forcing authorities to stop the flow of crude oil southward to the Basra oil terminal in the Persian Gulf, Southern Oil Company spokesman Samir Jassim said.
Exports were halted last month through the other export avenue -- the northern pipeline from Kirkuk to Ceyhan, Turkey -- after a May 25 bombing, Turkish officials said on condition of anonymity.
Two explosions on the southern pipeline occurred in the same area as a blast Tuesday. It could take up to a week to repair the damage, Jassim said.
Another pipeline carrying oil to a domestic refinery was attacked Tuesday night near Dibis, some 45km west of Kirkuk, according to Mustafa Awad, an official of the Northern Oil Company.
That pipeline does not carry crude oil for export, however. The fire was extinguished.
In another assault on the country's petroleum industry, the chief security officer for the Northern Oil Company was killed in an ambush yesterday in a crowded public market in Kirkuk. The victim, Ghazi Talabani, was a relative of the leader of one of Iraq's main Kurdish parties, Jalal Talabani.
Reviving petroleum exports is the key to restoring Iraq's economy after decades of war, international sanctions and Saddam Hussein's tyranny.
However, repeated attacks have slowed the process of returning Iraq, with the world's second-largest petroleum reserves after Saudi Arabia, to the forefront of global energy markets.
Insurgents are targeting the infrastructure apparently to undermine confidence in the new government, which takes power June 30. On Monday, a car bomb killed 13 people in Baghdad, including three foreign engineers working to restore the electricity sector.
The president of OPEC said yesterday he would ask major oil-producing countries that don't belong to the cartel -- such as Mexico, Oman, Angola and Russia -- to boost output to compensate for the loss of Iraqi exports.
The director of Russia's Federal Energy Agency rejected the call, however, saying Russia did not have enough spare capacity, the Interfax news agency reported.
Although Iraq's reserves are huge, the country is not a major player in global energy markets and a short-term interruption would not have a major effect. That could change if insurgents continue to interrupt Iraq's exports.
However, pipeline sabotage "has a large psychological effect on the markets and leads to higher prices," independent economist Jassem al-Saadoun said.
"The issue here is not that of supply and demand, but a political one that has to do with instability in the area, including what is happening in Saudi Arabia," he said, referring to numerous deadly attacks on foreign workers in the kingdom.
US officials had feared stepped up attacks -- especially against critical infrastructure -- in the run-up to the June 30 transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis.
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz arrived in Baghdad yesterday for talks with Iraqis on details of the sovereignty transfer, Al-Jazeera television reported.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi police officer was killed and five Iraqi civilians were wounded yesterday when a roadside bomb exploded near a US convoy in Ramadi.
US Marines arrested seven Iraqis, including six members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Force on suspicion of being involved in the attack. There were no US military causalities.
Civil defense troops are to assume greater responsibility for security after the formal end of the occupation, but concerns have risen in recent days about their lack of proper training and equipment.
Ahead of the power transfer, coalition officials said they would hand over the civilian part of Baghdad International Airport to Iraqi authorities about July 1.
The military also plans to turn over the military side of the airport by the middle of August, a senior coalition official said on condition of anonymity.
Return of the airport was a key demand of the interim government, which is anxious to take control of the country's borders when sovereignty is transferred.
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