Naseer Al-Nahr • Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 23 June 2003 — Iraqi saboteurs blew up a fuel pipeline north of Baghdad yesterday and fighters killed a US soldier and wounded two others just outside the capital as Iraq returned to world oil markets with its first crude oil exports since the US-led invasion.

The pipeline explosion did not affect the resumption of crude exports, but the sabotage highlighted recent attacks on fuel pipelines and other infrastructure that have hampered the drive to repair Iraq’s most vital industry.

The damaged pipeline carries gas — not oil — from the city of Kirkuk, 240 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, to various parts of Iraq to fuel power stations, said Brig. Salam Al-Hity, a senior police officer in Hit.

The US military said the cause of the blast was still under investigation, but local officials said it was sabotage.

Naim Al-Goud, mayor of Hit, said people from outside his region attacked the pipeline. “They want to make trouble between the American and the people of Hit,” he said. “We are trying to arrest them.”

“We sent fire engines this morning but we couldn’t do anything because the fire is bigger than our capabilities,” Al-Hity said, adding that local officials have asked the Oil Ministry to stop pumping to extinguish the fire.

Huge flames shot up from the site of the explosion — an outpost in barren desert — and no one appeared to be attempting to douse the flames. “It was like a huge bolt of lightning,” Hazem Abdel Rahman, a farmer who lives about a half mile away, said of the explosion.

Also in Hit, two US soldiers were injured when their Humvee hit a “land mine or other explosive device” on Saturday, said Maj. Sean Gibson, a US military spokesman. The injuries were not considered serious and the soldiers were being treated at a combat support hospital.

Meanwhile, at the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, Turkish, Iraqi and American officials held a ceremony to mark the resumption of exports as pipelines were hooked up to the Turkish tanker Ottoman Dignity and around 1 million barrels were loaded on board.

It was the first oil exported from Ceyhan since March 20.

The crude, which was bought by Turkey and was being taken to a refinery in the Aegean Sea, came from some 8 million barrels that have been stored in southern Turkey since before the US-led war began.

Officials said it will take days or weeks before Iraq could begin pumping fresh oil to Turkey. They said the pipeline from Kirkuk, 240 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, to Ceyhan is still not ready to begin carrying crude. Two explosions damaged the pipeline earlier this month in what Turkey’s foreign minister called sabotage.

The pipeline damaged yesterday was not expected to affect plans for the Kirkuk-Ceyhan operations.

In the United States, senators and other officials pondered Saddam Hussein’s fate, following a British newspaper report that US troops had hit a convoy believed to be carrying the deposed Iraqi leader and his eldest son, Uday.

The Observer weekly said US experts were carrying out DNA tests on human remains recovered from the convoy, struck by missiles last Wednesday as it headed out of Iraq.

In an interview with ABC television Sunday in Jordan, King Abdallah downplayed the report. “It’s like Elvis. There’s a lot of sightings of him all over the place,” he said.

Following last week’s capture of Saddam’s closest aide, Abid Hamid Mahmud — No. 4 on a US list of the 55 most wanted former Iraqi officials — the United States has boosted its efforts to track down Baath Party loyalists and Saddam’s Fedayeen paramilitary fighters, Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told “Fox News Sunday.”

“I will not be surprised at any military action that would lead to the possibility that we have now finally killed Saddam Hussein,” he said.

But he cautioned that he was “not aware” whether the Observer report was true. “I don’t think the Pentagon has confirmed it,” he said.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the committee’s vice chairman, was equally cautious. “My sort of general philosophy is that until I know through DNA or through some conclusive pieces of evidence that Saddam Hussein and or his sons are dead... they are alive, as far as I’m concerned, because they’re alive to the Iraqi people.”

“Until we have absolute proof, you have to assume he’s alive,” Roberts continued.

Whether or not Saddam has been killed, he said, if Iraqis believe he is alive “then obviously it certainly gives a lot of support to the Baath Party loyalists,” he said.