Main oil pipeline blown up in northern Iraq
10/6/2005 16:47
Saboteurs blew up a main oil pipeline in northern Iraq on Thursday, police
said on Friday.
"A huge fire flared at about 8:00 p.m. (1600 GMT) after
saboteurs blew up a bomb under the oil pipeline, 8 km east of Baiji refinery,"
Lie. Col. Yassin al-Janabi in Baiji told Xinhua.
The pipeline is one of the
main pipelines that feed Baiji refinery with crude from Kirkuk oil fields,
Janabi said, adding that large quantities of crude leaked to the nearby valleys
of Hemrin mountains, some 210 km north of Baghdad.
Firefighters and Iraq
security forces backed by US troops reached the area, where black and thick
smoke could be seen pouring into the sky, he added.
The same pipeline was
also hit on Wednesday morning, when a group of six saboteurs opened connections
between two pipes of the pipeline, the US-Iraqi liaison office in Tikrit said
Friday in a statement.
The saboteurs filled their tankers with stolen crude
to smuggle it out of Iraq, added the statement.
The police managed to detain
the saboteurs, but large quantities of crude had leaked to a nearby valley,
situated about 15 km north of Baiji, the statement said.
Xinhua
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