Iraqi checkpoint, oil pipeline attacked

Baghdad - Five Iraqi national guards have been killed and five others wounded in an attack Saturday on a checkpoint south of Baghdad, medical sources have said.

"Five dead bodies were brought in here, comprising one officer and four soldiers, as well as five wounded people, three of whom were seriously hurt," said Haydar Sabah, a doctor at the hospital in the of Mahmudiya, 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the capital.

On Saturday morning an oil pipeline feeding Iraq's southern export terminals was attacked and set ablaze.

An oil official says saboteurs attacked one of two oil pipelines feeding the terminals.

"Fire is raging in the 42-inch pipeline on the Faw Peninsula. It was sabotage," the official said.

British military and Iraqi oil officials say the "breached" pipeline has caused a fresh fall in exports.

An official at the terminal serving the southern oilfields said exports had fallen to 40,000 barrels per hour from 84,000 barrels.

Disruption of Iraq's oil exports has an immediate impact on the country's earnings and stability. During the UN embargo Iraq was able to export a monitored quantity of oil under the UN's Oil for Food programme.

Iraq ranks second only to Saudi Arabia for its oil resources, and was the world’s second largest oil exporter before the Iraq-Iran war broke out in 1980.

There's no word yet on who may have carried out Saturday's attack.

In other incidents, one person was wounded in a blast targeting a British military convoy in the main southern Iraqi city of Basra on Saturday, a spokesman said.

"At nine o'clock this morning (0500 GMT), there was an IED (improvised explosive device) attack against a British convoy. One person was injured," Captain Donald Francis said by telephone from the city.

He did not know whether the casualty was British or Iraqi. However, he said the wounds were not serious.

Francis added that two vehicles were slightly damaged in the attack. -- Al Jazeera

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