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A further blow for Iraq
18/08/2003 11:00 - (SA)
Baghdad - Iraq's hopes of a speedy post-war recovery took another blow on Sunday when saboteurs deprived hundreds of thousands of Baghdadis of running water, as fire continued to rage on a key northern oil pipeline attacked two days earlier.
Meanwhile, attacks on the US-led forces occupying Iraq since they ousted Saddam Hussein continued, with a Danish soldier and two Iraqis killed in the south and two US soldiers wounded and another Iraqi killed in the north.
Another five US soldiers were wounded in a mine attack on a convoy west of Baghdad, witnesses said.
And in Baghdad six Iraqi detainees were killed and 59 others wounded late on Saturday in a mortar attack on Abu Gharib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, the US army said.
About 300 000 residents of the capital were deprived of running water after a pipeline was attacked, causing floods in the streets, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) hit an open-air section of a pipeline linking the Sabah Missan pumping station with the eastern Baghdad district of Rasafa, said ICRC spokesperson Nada Dumani.
"We heard an explosion at 07:30 (04:30) and when we arrived on the scene we found a 40cm-wide hole in the pipe and water flowing out on to the road and around," said police officer Majid Hamid.
Hamid said the cause of the blast was an "explosive placed under the pipe" and not an RPG.
"This explosion has cut the supply of drinking water to most parts of Rasafa and we opened a second pipe to provide water for people who came looking for water with jerry cans," the policeman said.
Local residents, sweltering in scorching summer temperatures made worse by power outages cutting air conditioning, were quick to take advantage of the sabotage, merrily swimming in the improvised pools.
In northern Iraq fires were blazing along the country's key oil pipeline to Turkey, two days after the export route was cut in what officials said was sabotage.
The US army said it had reports but could not confirm that a second fire was burning near the scene of the original blaze, which officials said resulted from sabotage and would cost the war-shattered country seven million badly-needed dollars a day.
The pipeline from Iraq's northern oilfields around Kirkuk to the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan was attacked early on Friday when unknown assailants blew up a section near Baiji.
The attack came just two days after the key export route, which the US army said would not be repaired for at least two weeks, was finally reopened following the war.
The American-led coalition running Iraq sees the oil industry as central to financing the hugely expensive task of rebuilding a nation shattered by the war and by years of economic sanctions.
Elsewhere on the ground, it was unclear how exactly the Danish soldier and the two Iraqis were killed in Al-Madinah, 50km north of the southern port of Basra.
"Shortly after midnight, a group of Danish soldiers stopped a lorry with four Iraqis on board," said Danish army captain Jakob Pujje. "Gunfire erupted, a Danish soldier and two Iraqis were killed."
The Danish army command said from Copenhagen that another Iraqi was injured in the exchange, while Danish troops arrested a further six.
A defence ministry official in Copenhagen said the Danish soldier may have been accidentally shot by a member of his own unit.
The Dane was the first to be killed in Iraq since Denmark contributed 420 soldiers to help secure the region around Basra following the war.
In Baghdad, six Iraqi detainees were reported killed and 59 others wounded after a mortar attack late Saturday on the Abu Gharib prison.
Three rounds hit the prison, the US army said, adding that the attack was under investigation.
Abu Gharib, 25km outside central Baghdad, has become a focus of anger at the US-led occupation, with accusations that many of the 500 inmates are being held in horrid conditions.
Stung by such claims, including a damning report from Amnesty International that accused US forces of violently suppressing a June 13 riot that left one Iraqi dead, the coalition has begun refurbishing the prison.
North of the capital, an Iraqi was killed and two US soldiers wounded in separate attacks on coalition forces by suspected Saddam loyalists, the army said.
Lieutenant Colonel Bill MacDonald also said US soldiers detained 30 people in overnight raids, adding that two of them were targeted "mid-level" former regime officials.
Another five US soldiers were wounded when their convoy hit three landmines on a road near the hotspot western town of Ramadi, an Iraqi witness said.
Ramadi, 100km west of the capital, is considered a stronghold of supporters of Saddam.
- AFP
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