Independent , The oil briefly flowed again, but US casualties are mounting in a worsening struggle with Saddam supporters and opponents
Iraq resumed pumping oil to Turkey yesterday, two months after its main export pipeline was sabotaged. But after two hours the flow stopped again because of a leak.
It was a frustrating end to a week in which the number of US combat deaths since the war was declared over reached three figures, symbolising the uphill struggle of the American and British occupation authorities in their efforts to restore normality in Iraq.
The deaths of three US military police in a clash with Shia Muslim militiamen during a gun battle in the holy city of Karbala, in which eight militiamen and two Iraqi police were also killed, underlines how US soldiers are now dying in a much larger area of Iraq, and at the hands of a more diverse group of Iraqis, than was true two months ago.
The fighting in Karbala started late on Thursday when, according to the US version, a joint American-Iraqi patrol spotted gunmen in front of a mosque after a 9pm curfew imposed after fighting between rival groups of Shia militiamen. The militiamen say they were guards of Grand Ayatollah Mahmoud al-Hassani, and were protecting his house.
The most worrying sign for the coalition is that five US soldiers have now been killed by Shia fighters in the past 10 days. The majority of Iraqis are Shias who generally welcomed the fall of Saddam Hussein, even if they were ambivalent about the US occupation. There is little sign that Shias, who have the most to gain from elections, want a military confrontation with occupation authorities. But if the US tries to disarm or arrest militants such as Muqtada al-Sadr, who openly calls for an end to the occupation, then other members of his community may rally around him.
The guerrilla attacks on US troops are not very intense – they average about 20 a day – but they are spreading. While clashes in Karbala were still going on, a US soldier was killed and two wounded by a roadside bomb just outside Baghdad, probably by fighters from the Sunni community which lost most from the fall of Saddam.
The mood in the so-called Sunni triangle, essentially four provinces north of the capital, is growing more hostile to the occupation. Local tribal leaders say it is dangerous to criticise the old regime or oppose the resistance.
Two weeks ago in the town of Baiji, north of Tikrit, local people carrying portraits of Saddam and chanting slogans of support for him chased out the US-appointed police chief and 300 of his men, who fled to an American base. They burned down the mayor's office and the office of a party which is part of the ruling governing council.
This low-level war is now spreading north. On Friday nine US soldiers were wounded in a roadside bombing in the northern city of Mosul, which has hitherto been quiet. There are also a growing number of attacks in and around Kirkuk, the oil city captured by the Kurds during the war, where relations between Kurds, Iraqi Arabs and Turkomans are tense.
Since August the coalition has also been facing a car bombing campaign in Baghdad targeted at anybody allied or potentially allied to the US. Concrete walls have sprouted around every building containing foreigners. Most casualties have been Iraqis, but the bombs increase the sense of instability in the city and inflict disproportionate political damage, because they are all reported by the international media based in Baghdad, and so further reduce support for the war in the US.
