BAGHDAD, June 22: One of Iraq’s domestic gas pipelines was torn open by an explosion, while officials delayed pumping oil for export through a major link to Turkey on Sunday.

Just outside the town of Hit, around 150 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, balls of fire continued to emanate from the area where the gas pipeline explosion occurred late on Saturday.

Director general of the Northern Oil Co., Adel al-Qazzaz, said that the pipeline belonged to the Basra Gas Company. “It carries gas from Basra (in southern Iraq) to the northern part of the country,” Qazzaz said.

The blast, he added, “seemed to be sabotage.”

US officials said they were unaware of the cause of the blast — the second on Iraq’s pipelines in as many weeks — after warning on Saturday that the fragile security situation in Iraq could threaten fuel export volumes.

The head of Baghdad’s main refinery said the blast would hurt already erratic power production at the capital’s main power plant.

“It will affect electricity generation directly. People are already living in hell and it’s only going to get worse,” said Dathar al-Qassab.

He also hinted at sabotage, after a similar blast shut a different pipeline 10 days ago.

“It looks as though it’s the same people. There are a lot of similarities.”

Early on Sunday, about 100 war invalids demonstrated on crutches and in wheelchairs here in Baghdad to demand the US-led administration pay their pensions and grant them free medical cover.

Rebuilding efforts were also dented Sunday when the Northern Oil Co. said it would be forced to delay the resumption of oil flows through the main pipeline from Kirkuk in the north to the Turkish Mediterranean terminal at Ceyhan due to damage inflicted by the first blast — believed to be sabotage — 10 days ago.

“We are ready to pump but repairs to the pipeline will take another three or four days,” Qazzaz told AFP.

Later on Sunday, however, loading of Iraqi oil reserves stored at Ceyhan since before the war broke out on March 20 went ahead.

At the site of the pipeline blast, residents said the explosion was the result of a deliberate attack.

“It was a sabotage attack. We are ready to make sacrifices so that our oil doesn’t go to the Americans or the Israelis,” one resident told AFP, declining to be named.—AFP