Saboteurs increasing heat on coalition

HUNDREDS of thousands of sweltering Baghdadis faced another day without running water after sabotage of a key water pipe in the east of the capital that came amid a spate of deadly attacks across Iraq.

With summer temperatures hovering around 50 degrees Celsius (122 F), up to 300,000 people were without drinking water for a second day.

And with faltering infrastructure and increasing lawlessness in parts of the capital, the water shortage was likely to further wear down Iraqi patience with the occupying coalition forces.

The water-pipe attack on Sunday morning sent thousands of litres gushing into the streets of the eastern Baghdad suburb of Rasafa. Floods in some streets created impromptu swimming pools for many Iraqis baking in the relentless heat. Although engineers from Baghdad’s water company had stopped the gushing water by yesterday morning, supplies had still not been returned to many homes in the area, residents said.

There was confusion over what caused the pipe to blow. An ICRC spokeswoman said a rocket-propelled grenade hit the 1.6-metre (5.3-feet) diameter pipe at a open-air section near where the supply links the Sabah Missan pumping station with Rasafa.

And a local police officer said that an explosive had detonated under the pipe.

But US military personnel guarding the repair work and one of the work team hired to fix the damage both said the hole did not look like one left by an explosion.

Works contractor Salwan Hanudi agreed, saying: “It looks like someone had taken a knife and cut a hole in the pipe.”

The incident was one of three apparent attacks on civilian and military facilities over the weekend in what is being seen as a new anti-coalition resistance strategy of hitting targets that cause havoc and sew discontent among the population against occupying forces.

US Army engineers continued to battle a blaze yesterday Iraq’s main oil export pipeline - a crucial lifeline for the floundering economy - after two attacks by saboteurs last week set it on fire.

Rampant looting of electricity cables, as well as sabotage of oil pipelines and breakdowns of decrepit equipment, have caused chronic power and fuel shortages across southern Iraq, a country with the world’s second largest oil reserves.

Exports from southern oil fields have been badly hit by frequent power cuts, a further blow to reconstruction efforts which need billions of dollars of oil revenue to fund them.

US officials say supporters of the fugitive Iraq leader, Saddam Hussein are behind acts of sabotage on oil and water pipelines.

Paul Bremer, the US governor of Iraq, said Iraq was losing $7 million (6.28m) a day because of the sabotage of the export pipeline to Turkey. The pipeline reopened last Wednesday but was shut down two days later after a blaze erupted. A second fire broke out nearby on Saturday.