Key Iraqi oil pipeline is bombed
Sabateurs bombed a northern oil pipeline on Tuesday, halting oil exports to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, an official of the state-run oil company said. "An improvised explosive device was placed close to a network of pipelines at the level of Fatta, west of Kirkuk, causing a big explosion and huge fires that damaged the main pipeline running to Ceyhan and stopped exports," Nasir Qassim, a logistics and security official with the Northern Oil Company, said in an interview with Agence France-Presse. It was the latest attack on this nation's infrastructure, which requires major reconstruction. In Bangkok on Tuesday, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand told King Abdullah II of Jordan that he wanted the two countries to team up to help in the rebuilding, a Thai government spokesman said. But no details of plans forThai-Jordanian cooperation in Iraq were announced. [more]