Two wanted Iraqis surrender, oil flow to Turkey stops

TIKRIT, Iraq - Two Iraqis on a US "black list" surrendered to US troops hunting for Saddam Hussein, but problems with the export of vital crude oil highlighted Iraq's instability after the war that ousted its leader.

The US-led administration's attempts to revive Iraq's oil industry suffered a blow when a fire and technical problems halted oil in a recently reopened northern export pipeline.

Saboteurs opposed to the US occupation of Iraq have been blamed for a spate of fires and explosions along the pipe, but an Iraqi engineer said it was not yet clear what triggered the latest blaze.

US soldiers hunting the deposed president said two people on a list of 250 wanted Saddam loyalists turned themselves in over the past 36 hours.

"I guess they decided they wanted to come to us rather than us coming to them," Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell from the 4th Infantry Division told reporters in Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

One man was freed after interrogation, but Russell did not give details. The US has a separate list of 55 most wanted, which includes Saddam and his top aides.

US forces face a guerrilla campaign in Sunni Muslim areas where support for Saddam is strongest. Attacks have killed 60 US soldiers since Washington declared major combat over on May 1.

A soldier was wounded on Saturday morning when a military convoy came under small arms fire and bomb attack near the town of Baqoba, a US military spokesman said.

There are also signs of surging resentment among Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority, which generally welcomed Saddam's overthrow in the US-led invasion that began in March.

Witnesses said British troops arrested three or four Iraqis during a raid in Basra -- two days after a roadside bomb killed a British soldier and wounded two others in the city.

In a Baghdad suburb tensions simmered three days after a US helicopter tried to bring down a religious flag on a communications tower.

Shi'ite residents of Sadr City have rejected a US apology for provoking Wednesday's protest and vowed more violence unless US troops withdraw from the district.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said a timetable was needed to soothe Iraqis' fears about their future.

"There should be a road map that makes it clear to the Iraqis when the occupation will end and... an Iraqi government, internationally recognised, will be formed," Annan told a news conference in Helsinki.

He said discussion about a greater UN role in Iraq, including possibly organising a multinational force, were still in the early stages. "I don't see a second resolution on that for some time, if we are going to get one," he said.

Annan hoped the World Bank, UN Development Programme and other agencies would have a plan together by the time donors met in Madrid in October.

"We would appeal to member states for money to be able to carry out that programme and obviously that money is going to be needed more than ever because the oil is not flowing as well as expected," he said.

The US administration has battled for months to fix Iraq's northern oil export pipeline, to ensure badly needed oil revenues to rebuild a country devastated by three wars in two decades and 13 years of sanctions.

It was not clear how long it would take to restart the northern pipeline, which had begun moving Kirkuk crude for the first time since the war that toppled Saddam on April 9.

An Iraqi technical official said it would take at least a week to repair the fire damage, but even before the blaze, the US military said the pipeline had been shut because some sections could not handle the pressure.

"There is nothing going through the pipeline right now because repairs were needed after it reopened," Colonel Robert Nicholson, chief engineer for the 4th Infantry Division based in the north, told Reuters.

All crude had been exported from the south before the northern pipeline reopened.

But the southern region is also facing problems. Theft of power lines has halved exports and threatens to bring sales to a standstill.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq