Suicide boat bombers attack Iraqi oil plant

Suicide attackers detonated explosive-laden boats near oil facilities in the Gulf, killing two US Navy sailors in a new tactic against Iraq’s vital oil industry.

Saturday’s attack was the first such maritime raid against oil facilities since US troops invaded Iraqi more than a year ago.

The blasts resembled attacks in 2000 and 2002 – blamed on al-Qaida – against the USS Cole and a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 American sailors and a tanker crewman.

In the attack, three dhows, or small boats, drew close to two major oil terminals in Gulf waters about 100 miles from Iraq’s main port, Umm Qasr, and exploded when coalition craft tried to intercept them.

A US Navy craft was overturned by the blast, killing the American sailors and injuring five others, the US military said.

Initial reports said there was no damage to the terminals, the military said, and Iraq’s main southern oil outlet, Umm Qasr, remained open, a British spokesman said.

The Gulf bombings came on a day of multiple attacks in Iraq.

The deadliest was a roadside bomb that hit a bus south of Baghdad, killing at least 13 Iraqis.

A mortar barrage struck a crowded market in the capital’s biggest Shiite neighbourhood, Sadr City, killing at least seven.

The US soldiers were killed around dawn, when two rockets were fired from a truck and slammed into the base in Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. US helicopter gunships then destroyed the truck. Seven soldiers were wounded, three of them critically, the military said.

Also, an Army reservist missing in Iraq since a convoy attack April 9 was confirmed dead.

The remains of Sgt. Elmer Krause, 40, were found on Friday, according to a statement on Saturday from the US Department of Defence.

It gave no other details. Another soldier and a US contract worker abducted in the same attack remain unaccounted for.

The latest deaths, along with the combat death of a Marine announced on Saturday, brought to 109 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April.

The military also announced the death of a soldier in a non-combat incident, bringing to 718 the number service members who have died in the country.

Anywhere from 900 to 1,200 Iraqis have been killed in April – depending on various reports of the death toll from Fallujah.