17 killed across Iraq; attack on Kirkuk-Bayji pipeline (2nd Lead)

Sep 18, 2007, 11:19 GMT

Baghdad - Seventeen people were reported killed and 38 wounded in separate acts of violence across Iraq on Tuesday, according to local authorities.

Three car bombs exploded successively in central and eastern Baghdad, police said.

The first two bombs were detonated in a parking lot near Baghdad's health ministry in the central area known as Bab al-Muazzam. The attack was the more intense, killing 11 people and wounding 30.

Initial reports said seven people were killed and 23 wounded, but figures were adjusted later.

The third car bomb exploded minutes later in the eastern Zayouna neighbourhood, killing two people and wounding five.

In another attack in the Zaafaraniyah suburb, southern Baghdad, a blast near a police patrol killed a civilian and wounded two more.

Meanwhile, gunfights between militants and police left three people dead and two wounded in Tikrit, 170 kilometres north of the capital, the local police department said.

A blanket curfew was imposed in the area that was the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Separately, Iraqi troops and US special operation forces captured a senior member of al-Qaeda in Iraq, two snipers and 15 suspected terrorists during raids in Baghdad's northern area, the US military said in a statement on Tuesday.

The captured militant was suspected of being the second-in-command to Abu Ghazwan, the head of a terrorist network with suspected links to al-Qaeda that targets citizens and is reportedly also responsible for murder, robberies and kidnappings.

The US military said the network was known to stage attacks from a local mosque, and to provide financing for car bomb attacks.

'The cell is further suspected of storing and supplying weapons such as surface-to-air missiles, mortar rounds, mortar launchers, and heavy machine guns to be used in future terrorist attacks,' according to the US statement.

In another development, an explosion along an oil pipeline that extends from the northern Kirkuk oilfields to Bayji refineries caused damage to both the line and another parallel pipeline between Iraq and Turkey.

The ensuing fire affected only a section of the Kirkuk-Bayji pipeline which runs over River Tigris, but caused an oil leak and black fog in the area.

Firefighters struggled to contain the damage, a source in the local oil industry said. The explosion is expected to result in halt to production at Bayji refineries, which reportedly supply more than half of Iraq's oil products.

According to another source in water department at Salahaddin, the explosion caused oil to seep into the Tigris and causing water stations in the area to be temporarily closed down.

The water supply up to 40 kilometres south of the explosion site was affected, the source added.

In other developments, around 1.2 million children returned to classrooms in the autonomous Kurdish region at the start of the news school year on Tuesday. The event is usually marked by the raising of the regional flag across the cities of northern Iraq.

The region's Vice President Omar Fatah told reporters this school year was different since the educational system had been overhauled and improved, and promised the new methods would encourage students to pursue their education further 'assuring that their efforts will not be wasted.'