/ 23 November 2003

Seven wounded in blast at Iraq oil company

Three Iraqis and four Americans were wounded in an explosion on Saturday at a heavily protected building belonging to the state-owned Northern Oil Company (NOC) in Kirkuk, police and security officials said.

”At dinner time two rockets hit the NOC cultural and social club, which the Americans and Kellogg Brown Root employees use as a canteen,” police officer Salam Jalal said.

He confirming it was the first attack to target the building.

Kellogg Brown Root is a subsidiary of United States oil services giant Halliburton, which has netted a controversial US government contract to help rebuild Iraq’s shattered oil industry.

Halliburton was run by US Vice-President Dick Cheney from 1995 to 2000.

”Three Iraqis were wounded,” a NOC employee based in Iraq’s northern oil capital Kirkuk said on condition of anonymity.

NOC director general Adel Kazzaz confirmed the report, saying there were ”victims” from the attack.

Four American soldiers and civilians were also among the wounded, said a guard at the entrance of the badly damaged NOC complex. US officials could not immediately confirm the casualties.

Mike McAleer, a spokesperson for the Restore Iraqi Oil team, said there had been an explosion but doubted it was caused by a rocket attack.

The NOC club is situated within a zone of Kirkuk, a northern Iraqi oil city, that is heavily protected by an Iraqi security service trained by a South African private company.

After the attack US troops were deployed in force in Kirkuk, stopping anyone who approached the area.

Kirkuk police chief Torhan Yussef said he was turned back from going to the NOC by US soldiers.

The southern edge of the city also came under artillery bombardment on Saturday night. The area most affected was the road leading to Tikrit, the hometown of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. — Sapa-AFP