Pipeline sabotage?

lozina

Lifer
Sep 10, 2001
11,711
8
81
There was an explosion on Thursday along a pipeline carrying crude oil from the oil fields near Kirkuk to Iraq's largest refinery at Beiji, the US military said in Tikrit.

Witnesses said the explosion occurred just north of Beiji, about 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Baghdad.

The cause of the blast could not be immediately determined and the extent of the damage was unclear.

The military said the cause of the fire was not yet known because it was raging so fiercely that investigators could not get close.

Valves on the 20-inch (50.80-centimeter) pipeline were being closed to shut off fuel to the fire.

Said Colonel James Hickey, Commander of Force Infantry 1st Brigade: "At eight o'clock in the evening local time, we saw the fire begin from a distance. We had patrols in the area. We maintained surveillance in this area throughout yesterday evening and this morning where we co-ordinated with the Northern Oil Company to try to stop this fire"

Initial reports said the fire was on the main export pipeline to Turkey but the military said it broke out on a feeder line from the Kirkuk fields, Iraq's second biggest.

The line to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan has been hit by a string of sabotage attacks just days after it was reopened.

Paul Bremer, the US administrator of Iraq, said the line's closure was costing the country US$7 million each day.

The military says the line should be back in operation in about a month.

Seeing various reports of this, this one is from Channel News Asia in Singapore.

An entire month to repair it? That's quite a setback...

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/middleeast/view/49397/1/.html
 

kaizersose

Golden Member
May 15, 2003
1,196
0
76
if these people want the US out of iraw so bad, they are not helping their cause. this will only serve to lengthen the redevelopement of the iraqi economy which means the US will stay longer. if they are lucky, we may even send more troops to help control the violence.