It was early evening in the waters of the northern Gulf when commanders from the United States navy’s Fifth Fleet spotted a small dhow heading towards one of Iraq’s most important oil platforms.
An eight-man naval team on a rigid hull inflatable was sent out to intercept the boat. As the crew drew up alongside and prepared to board, the dhow exploded in a massive fireball, flipping the US speedboat over. Two sailors were killed and one of four sailors injured died later.
Twenty minutes later the Fifth Fleet identified two more small motorboats heading towards Iraq’s second oil platform in the Gulf, where two tankers were docked. Again naval patrols were ordered out to intercept the dhows but as they approached, both boats detonated explosives, blowing themselves out of the water.
The apparently coordinated and brazen raid marks an alarming new threat. It was the first time the US military in Iraq has faced suicide bombers on boats and the most serious attack yet on the oil industry. Saturday’s attacks fit a pattern of ever-widening violence across Iraq.
At first Iraqi oil officials tried to play down the damage, suggesting that oil exports had restarted from the two terminals, the Khawr al-Amaya and al-Basra platforms, which are the principal export route for Iraqi crude oil, handling around 1,7-million barrels a day.
But on Sunday night Iraq’s oil minister admitted that the biggest terminal, al-Basra, would remain closed, at least until Monday, while engineers determined the extent of the damage. Generators used for loading tankers were damaged in the explosions, said the minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum. He said exports would resume on Monday.
Other sources said one of the four berths at al-Basra had suffered some damage.
The delay alone will cost Iraq 1-million barrels a day in lost exports. If the terminal remains shut for two days, Iraq will lose around $110-million in revenue.
The smaller Khawr al-Amaya platform, which handles around 700 000 barrels a day, reopened on Sunday morning.
Uloum said he suspected al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks: ”This is my feeling, I don’t have evidence of it.”
US naval officials said the injured crew were being treated in a military hospital in Kuwait. ”Initial reports indicate no damage to either terminal,” the navy said.
US navy investigators are to hold an inquiry into the attacks, in particular to identify where the boats were launched from. It is unclear whether the attacks were coordinated with the violence across Iraq led by insurgents, or whether they were led by attackers from a different group. Many highlighted the similarities with the suicide boat attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, which killed 17 American sailors and was blamed on al-Qaeda.
”There will be more care taken now,” said Shamkhi Faraj, head of Iraq’s state oil marketing organisation. ”We will need to have more safeguards and more patrolling.”
Although violence in Iraq has worsened dramatically this month, with the deaths of more than 100 US troops, the oil industry had survived relatively unscathed until now.
The killings and kidnappings of western contractors have forced many out of Iraq and held up many reconstruction projects, particularly in the power sector. Security costs are soaring and foreign governments are advising their citizens to leave Iraq.
Although there have been sabotage attacks on oil pipelines for several months, new security forces had been posted and exports had begun to pick up. Overall exports were up to nearly 2m barrels a day, around the level immediately before the US invasion last year.
Walid Khadduri, editor in chief of the Middle East Economic Survey, said: ”What has happened was a big setback. I understand there is no serious physical damage but it is quite a threat that they could send all these boats near it.”
He said insurance costs for tankers would increase and ships would be pressing for more security before they used the waters.
On April 3, Iraq’s northern pipeline to Ceyhan, in Turkey, was reopened after months of repeated sabotage. New security forces have been posted and the pipeline is now carrying around 160 000 barrels a day, although this is well below its capacity.
The US administration in Baghdad has plans to export oil by road and rail to Kuwait and by pipeline to Iran.
Perhaps the greatest worry is that the suicide boats represent a widening of the insurgency. Although the focus of US operations has been in Falluja and around the holy city of Najaf, there have been attacks across the country. More than 70 people were killed in Basra last week in the first big coordinated suicide car bomb attack to hit the southern city.
US officials have warned they expect violence to escalate in the weeks leading up to the handover of sovereignty on June 30, particularly now it is clear that Washington will retain considerable powers. – Guardian Unlimited Â