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| Iraq |
| Bombs hit Iraq oil tanks in rare southern attack |
| 2011-06-06 |
| A bomb attack against an Iraqi oil storage depot set one tank ablaze on Sunday in a rare assault on strategic southern oilfields, but the country's crude exports were unaffected, Iraqi oil officials and police said. The attack underscored the complex task Iraq faces in protecting and building up its oil infrastructure as the last US troops prepare to withdraw from the OPEC country at the end of the year when a bilateral security pact finishes. Dhiya Jaffar, head of the state-run South Oil Company, told Reuters the attack set ablaze one tank at the Zubair 1 storage facility, but the explosion had not affected pumping to Al Fao port, where crude exports are dispatched. An Iraqi police source said bombs targeted four tanks at the facility, but only one of the tanks hit contained crude and ignited. Another bomb hit an empty tank and bombs at two other tanks were disactivated, the police source said. Jaffar said the facility had 20 tanks, of which 14 were working. He described the attack as a 'terrorist operation' without giving any details. One Iraqi oil official said the blazing tank and another damaged tank near the Zubair oilfield, which is operated by Italy's ENI and US Occidental Petroleum and South Korea's KOGAS, had been quickly isolated. Firefighters put out the blaze hours after the attack and other storage tanks were operating normally at the complex, the Iraqi oil official said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 Sounds like the authorities actually got everything at Zubair under control pretty easily. One tank down, but they were able to put out the fire and prevent further detonations. |
| Posted by: American Delight 2011-06-06 08:54 |
| #1 ION KAVKAZ CENTER > [Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan]IEA MUJAHIDEN HIT AT [US-NATO] BASES. Also from SAME > DEATH OF RUSSIA: RUSSIANS FEAR REBELLION OF "MIGRANT WORKERS". Milyuhns-n-Tilyuhns of foreign migrants theresame. * SAME > [Poorly trained]RUSSIANS CAUSED HUGE CASUALTIES AMONG THEIR SOLDIERS AT MILITARY BASE IN UDMURTIA [arms depot explosion], RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION FEARED. Russian Federation's = RusArmy's "Fukushima"??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-06-06 02:19 |