SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 2003
Sabotage knocks out power in Baghdad
AP
FALLUJAH, Iraq: Insurgents blew up a power transformer in a central Iraqi city with a rocket propelled grenade, witnesses said on Friday, in the latest of a spiraling series of attacks on US soldiers and sabotage against the infrastructure needed for Iraq's reconstruction.
US tanks guarding the gates of the power station in Fallujah, 60 km from Baghdad, returned a barrage of gunfire into the darkness, said the supervisor of the station, Soadad Khalil.
There were no casualties among the soldiers or the station's employees, he said. The explosion, around 11:30 pm on Thursday, sent a tower of flames into the night, and the transformer was still smoldering 12 hours later.
The attack knocked out one of the two transformers at the power plant, which provides nearly half the electricity to this city of about 75,000 people, which has been a centre of hostility to the coalition occupation of Iraq.
Khalil said that it was possible the rocket was intended for the American tanks but missed and slammed into the transformer behind them. Employees were assessing the damage to see what could be salvaged.
Sabotage against power and water installations has been a key element of the anti-American resistance, which has been growing in recent days despite US officials insistence that it is not being organised centrally.
Despite efforts to increase generation, the UN Development Programme reported on Thursday that power delivery to Baghdad fell to 800 mw from 1300 mw two weeks ago. It attributed the fall to the sabotage of power lines and breakdowns because of daytime temperatures reaching 45 Centigrade (113 Fahrenheit).
Daily attacks against the US-led coalition have grown increasingly lethal in the last week. On Thursday, assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a military ambulance south of Baghdad, killing one American and wounding two others. He was the third soldier to die from hostile fire this week alone.
Among other incidents, two men fired an RPG at a tank late Wednesday in Samarra north of the capital, causing little damage and no casualties. One attacker was killed and the second captured.
Attackers also fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US tank north of Baghdad, and a US army truck was set afire in the western part of the capital. The military reported that three mortar shells hit outside a coalition-run aid office in the town of Samarra on Tuesday, killing one Iraqi and wounding 12.
The guerrilla-style attacks came as US forces conducted house-to-house searches for weapons and arrested hundreds of people across Iraq.
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