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Italian official quits Council

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA Nov. 18. Unfazed by the U.S. air and ground assault on its strongholds, Iraqi resistance fighters blew up an oil pipeline in northern Iraq and wounded two American soldiers on Tuesday even as an Italian official resigned from the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad. "The provisional authority simply doesn't work,'' an Italian daily quoted Marco Calamai, a special counsellor of the U.S.-led administration steering Iraq's occupation said. "It's neither fish nor fowl. Reconstruction projects that were promised and financed have had practically no results.''

Mr. Calamai stressed that the American-led administration had failed to come to grips with the complexities of Iraqi society and the U.N.'s intervention was necessary to improve the "seriously compromised" situation.

Iraqi guerilla fighters blew up an oil pipeline near the Baiji refinery in northern Iraq last night. This pipeline which is meant to carry crude from the northern oilfields to Turkey has been repeatedly bombed during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Iraq, consequently has been exporting around 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) over the first 10 days of November from the southern Basra oil terminal.

Observers point out that the Iraqi resistance appears to be deliberately targeting the pipeline to undermine the U.S.' plans to generate revenues from oil sales. The U.S. occupation authorities had dismissed thousands of oil workers, many of whom now advise the resistance on sabotaging the pipelines, analysts say. The attack has come embarrassingly close to a U.S. declaration that a task force comprising its troops, personnel provided by a South African security firm and local tribesmen had been formed to safeguard the pipeline.

Meanwhile, Mohammad's Army, which apparently is part of the Iraqi resistance, has claimed responsibility for downing the U.S. helicopter on Nov. 2, which killed 16 soldiers. In videotape broadcast by the Lebanese Al Hayat-LBC television channel, the group gave the U.S. forces a fortnight's notice to quit Iraq or face more attacks. Faced with intensifying guerilla attacks, the U.S. occupation forces continued to use air power and heavy weaponry, including airdropping 500-pound bombs, allegedly on resistance strongholds. The attacks have also targeted buildings and vegetation, which could provide Iraqi fighters cover to fire weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades. The U.S. authorities claim that they had, on Monday, killed six guerilla fighters and detained 99 others in a series of raids.

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