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Oil-rich region is hit by another suicide bombing

By Times Wires
Published December 9, 2007

BEIJI, Iraq - A suicide truck bomber killed 11 people in an attack on a police station in the northern Iraqi town of Beiji, Iraqi security forces said on Saturday.

The station is an important base for Iraqi security forces and tribes fighting al-Qaida in Iraq, a predominantly Iraqi insurgent group that U.S. intelligence says is foreign-led.

Seven of the people killed in the 9 a.m. attack Saturday were policemen. The explosion wounded 44 other people, damaged 15 houses and set fire to 13 vehicles, said Capt. Sherzad Abdullah Zinga of the Iraqi army's 4th Division.

Zinga said the building previously had been attacked with car bombs and missiles because of its role in fighting al-Qaida in Iraq.

This was the second attack in two days in Iraq's lucrative oil producing region.

The violence in this area about 125 miles north of Baghdad was the latest reminder of an apparent move by insurgents to step up attacks in the north of the country after being pushed out of the capital by an increased troop presence.

Although attacks on civilians nationwide have fallen about 55 percent since June, according to U.S. military figures, attacks in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces just north of Baghdad have remained the same or increased.

The latest attack was carried out by a suicide bomber in Beiji, a major oil center and home to thousands of employees of Iraq's largest oil refinery. Two pipelines, one carrying oil from the Kirkuk field to Beiji for refining, and another carrying oil north into Turkey, cross through the city. The refinery handles about 300,000 barrels a day from Kirkuk, according to Iraq's Oil Ministry.

Because of its strategic importance, the city is a frequent target of insurgents, as are the pipelines. In June, 18 people died when a suicide bomber attacked a police headquarters. An August attack at another Beiji police post killed 24 people.

Since the war began in March 2003, there have been more than 460 attacks on Iraq's oil installations or industry employees, according to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, which monitors security issues related to energy. These have included scores of blasts along the pipelines, including one Friday about 10 miles northeast of Beiji.

The attacks have left Iraq's critical oil industry struggling to increase exports, on which 90 percent of the country's revenue is based. Before the war, Iraq exported about 2.3-million barrels per day. Last year, it averaged 1.6-million barrels daily.

In an interview Friday on Iraq's Al Hurra television, Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani said exports had reached 2-million barrels daily recently. "Thank God for those high oil prices," Shahristani added.

Oil analysts and U.S. officials, however, say that until Iraq's government passes a bill overseeing management of the country's oil fields and establishing a system for divvying up oil profits, the industry will remain stunted by lack of investment.

Information from the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

Also Saturday

U.S. military officials said they had killed 12 alleged al-Qaida insurgents in raids south and northeast of Baghdad.

[Last modified December 9, 2007, 01:54:17]