Naseer Al-Nahr, Arab News Staff

BAGHDAD, 22 December 2003 — US troops intensified a crackdown on anti-American guerrillas across volatile central Iraq yesterday as saboteurs attacked fuel tanks and a pipeline, heightening an already acute oil crisis.

Saboteurs, who have wreaked havoc on US efforts to restore the country’s devastated infrastructure after Saddam Hussein’s fall, set the fuel storage tanks ablaze in Baghdad and ruptured the pipeline feeding oil products to refineries in the capital.

US forces have stepped up the hunt for guerrillas in the past week, buoyed by last weekend’s capture of the ousted dictator near his hometown of Tikrit. Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers told US television his capture had led to the arrest of “several hundred” Iraqis, including some insurgency leaders.

“Some of the information gleaned when we picked up Saddam Hussein led to a better understanding of the structure of the resistance and the former regime elements,” he told “Fox News Sunday”. Western security sources warn the threat of attacks has not diminished. Intelligence indicates more attacks are planned against US and Western targets over the Christmas period.

An explosion ignited fuel tanks in the Ur district of Baghdad in a pre-dawn attack, witnesses said. No casualties were reported but hundreds of thousands of liters of fuel were burnt.

An Iraqi Oil Ministry official said yesterday a pipeline carrying oil products to a refinery in Baghdad was attacked on Friday in Al-Mashahdah, some 32 km (20 miles) north of Baghdad.

The sabotage of oil products facilities comes at the height of a gasoline shortage crisis. Damaged pipelines and rundown refineries alongside smuggling have left authorities struggling to satisfy local fuel demands and Iraqis waiting in queues for hours to fill up their cars with petrol.

Lack of basic services has fueled anti-American feeling among parts of the population despite the joy of most Iraqis after the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam.

However, applauding the US troops’ work, Time magazine named “the American Soldier” Person of the Year yesterday.

“...the very messy aftermath of the war has made it clear that Washington’s policy was going to have to be carried out day by day by the soldiers on the ground,” Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly said.

Witnesses said yesterday US troops were conducting a second day of house-to-house searches in the town of Rawah.

Military vehicles and tanks took position at the entrance of the city, with barbed-wire barricades blocking the main road.

A US officer told reporters 30 people were detained in the operation and weapons, including assault rifles, mines and rocket-propelled grenades were seized.

In the northern town of Mosul, soldiers detained a suspect for Baath Party activities, including continuing to hold party meetings, planning possible attacks and for “possible war crimes to include torture and murder”, the military said.