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Nothern pipeline destroyed baghdad bomb kills two Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/057/world/Oil_pipeline_destroyed_in_nort:.shtmlhttp://www.boston.com/dailynews/057/world/Oil_pipeline_destroyed_in_nort:.shtml
Oil pipeline destroyed in northern Iraq, bomb kills two in capital
By Sameer N. Yacoub, Associated Press, 2/26/2005 05:55
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) An oil pipeline in northern Iraq was ablaze Saturday after saboteurs blew it up in the latest attack against the insurgent-wracked country's vital oil industry. In the capital, a roadside bomb killed two people, officials and witnesses said.
The violence came one day after the government announced the arrest of a man it described as a key figure in the country's most feared terrorist group, and a top official said the noose was tightening around its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The pipeline connecting oil fields in Dibis with the northern city of Kirkuk about 20 miles away was blown up late Friday, an official of the state-run North Oil Co. said on condition of anonymity. He said it would take at least four days to repair the line.
Insurgents have regularly targeted Iraq's oil infrastructure, cutting exports and denying the country funds badly needed for reconstruction.
In Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb in the west of the city, killing two civilians. Their slumped bodies could be seen in a small white car, its windshield smashed in the blast.
It was not clear whom the attack targeted. U.S. Lt. Col. Clifford Kent said a U.S. tank was nearby at the time, but it was not damaged.
One Iraqi said he was on his way to work when the bomb detonated. ''We just arrived near those tanks (when) the blast occurred. And as you see, blood soaked us for doing nothing,'' Mohammed al-Duleimi told Associated Press Television News.
A separate car bomb exploded near a convoy of Iraqi National Guard troops in Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad, witnesses said. No casualties were reported.
Also Saturday, a female Iraqi television presenter kidnapped in the northern city of Mosul was found dead. Several masked gunmen abducted Raiedah Mohammed Wageh Wazan last week. Her corpse was found Friday, said her husband, Salim Saad-Allah. She had been shot in the head.
Wazan was working for a local state-owned television station in Mosul. It was unclear what prompted the kidnapping, but her station was attacked last week with mortar rounds after it aired interviews with alleged insurgents in captivity.
The U.S. command on Saturday announced the death a day earlier of a U.S. soldier west of the capital in Anbar province, where the military launched a massive sweep last week to root out insurgents.
The operation included U.S. military vehicles equipped with loudspeakers, which drove through city streets offering $25 million for information leading to the arrest of al-Zarqawi thought to be one of the masterminds behind a wave of car bombings, kidnappings, and beheadings across Iraq.
''We are very close to al-Zarqawi, and I believe that there are few weeks separating us from him,'' Iraq's interim national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, told The Associated Press.
He described the latest alleged terrorist capture as another blow to al-Zarqawi's organization, known as al-Qaida in Iraq. The group is still reeling from previous arrests and the killing of Omar Hadid, another of his senior aides, in November's assault on the city of Fallujah.
Iraqi security services arrested Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaymi, also known as Abu Qutaybah, on Sunday in a raid in Annah, a town in the so-called Sunni triangle of fierce opposition to the U.S. occupation.
The government said Al-Dulaymi was a top aide to the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, who has described himself as al-Qaida's leader in Iraq. Al-Dulaymi was responsible for finding safe houses and transportation for members of the terrorist group, according to the announcement.
Also arrested in Sunday's raid was Ahmad Khalid Marad Ismail al-Rawi, identified as one of al-Zarqawi's drivers. Both have family names indicating they are from the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad.
Iraqi authorities have been eager to promote the message that they are making headway in their fight against the insurgency.
On Thursday, the government said it had captured the leader of an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist cell in Baqouba, north of Baghdad, who was allegedly responsible for carrying out a string of beheadings in Iraq. And last week, police said they'd arrested two other leaders of the insurgency in Baqouba, including a top aide to al-Zarqawi named Haidar Abu Bawari.
Associated Press writer Yahya Barzanji in Kirkuk contributed to this report.
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