Second attack sabotages Iraq oil pipelines

June 9, 2004 - Saboteurs have blown up a portion of the Kirkuk-Turkey oil pipeline, the second such attack in less than 24-hours, an Iraqi security chief in northern Iraq says.

"A bomb placed 80 kilometres west of Kirkuk exploded at 8:20am [local time] on the main pipeline to the Ceyhan terminal," Iraqi Civil Defence Corps chief Anwar Hamed Amin said.

Northern Oil Company fire chief Jumaa Ahamd says the pipeline to Turkey is still ablaze.

Earlier, saboteurs ruptured a pipeline linking Iraq’s largest fuel refinery at Baiji, 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, to a power station.

The attack has shut down the 400-megawatt power station in Baiji and caused a huge blackout in the town.

Firemen are still battling to put out a fire on the line.

Saboteurs have redoubled their efforts to hobble the country’s reconstruction, after the appointment of a new caretaker government last week.

Assailants on Sunday detonated sound grenades on the Kirkuk-Turkey pipeline, Iraq’s main oil export artery from the north.

Oil prices shot higher Tuesday amid reports of that attack.

Northern Iraq’s pipeline, which takes crude from the Kirkuk oil fields to Ceyhan, has not been in regular use since the US-led invasion of Iraq last year.

A series of sabotage operations blamed on anti-US guerrillas have crippled the route. AFP