Iraqi tribes spearhead new oil pipeline protection force
Jordan Times, Wednesday, August 13, 2003
MULLAH ABDULLAH, Iraq (AP) — Standing in his wheat field with his AK-47, Kerim Kelaf says he's willing to arrest — or kill — any saboteurs or looters threatening the oil pipelines that snake around his farmland in this windswept village near the northern oil fields of Kirkuk. “If there's one drop of oil lost from the pipeline, I'll give you one drop of my blood because they are both the most precious thing we Iraqis have,” said Kelaf, a brawny cousin on the local tribal chief, as he pointed to the ground where a network of buried pipelines runs from the oil fields to the main pumping station.
Kelaf is acting autonomously. But he and men from other villages along the main export pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan will be part of a security force of 5,000 to 7,000 men that is currently in the planning stages. It will include such diverse elements as Sufis, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, local Iraqi policemen and US soldiers. Together, they will guard an area twice the size of Sweden (California).
The force is urgently needed. Saboteurs — whether disgruntled former employees or members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party — have taken advantage of the lack of security around the northern oil installations to wreck pipelines and delay the resumption of Iraq's oil exports from the north. Revenue from oil sales is vital to pay for the country's reconstruction.
When it does start pumping, the pipeline will start at a rate around 200,000 barrels a day and then gradually increase, but it will be a while before it returns to the prewar level of close to 1 million barrels a day.
“Employing the tribes to guard the pipeline is the best option we have now,” says Ghazi Talebani, head of security at the state-owned Northern Oil Company, or NOC, that operates the oil fields, pipelines and refinery in the north.
The tribes have advantages over Iraqi policemen, Talebani explains. “They're here, know the area and already have their own weapons.” For weeks now, he's been talking to tribal leaders about employing locals for $70 a month — around 10 times more than prewar salaries — to guard the section of the export pipeline that runs through the mostly Arab-populated territory, which is the part most susceptible to sabotage.
Once the pipeline reaches the more secure Kurdish-controlled areas further north, Peshmerga fighters take up the watch over Iraq's oil exports. The US-led coalition is financing the planned security force.
Using village patrols isn't a new idea in Iraq. Saddam also made use of the tribes, continuing a tradition that began in 1936, shortly after the first export pipelines were built.
But Saddam detailed two army divisions of 10,000 men, who set up military checkpoints, while military aircraft made twice daily flights along the pipeline. This was in addition to NOC security guards and local police. Some say the total force numbered close to 30,000.
Major Mohammad Hussein, one of 500 practicing Sufis from the Qadiriya brotherhood employed by the US-led coalition forces to guard NOC facilities, says it could be done with fewer men.
“You could probably properly secure the area with around 5,000 to 7,000 guards but they would need to be well-trained and trusted,” says Hussein.
For the moment, though, security outside NOC perimeters is virtually nonexistent.
Just a couple of weeks ago, attackers detonated a bomb underneath a 30-inch (76-centimetre) crude oil pipeline from the oil fields to the region's main refinery at Baiji.
The blaze took several days to extinguish.
Every few days, saboteurs dig holes underneath the various pipelines crisscrossing the area, fill them with explosives and blow up the line, leaving oil fires that can take days to extinguish. Other attacks have included rocket-propelled grenades and rounds of bullets from AK-47s being fired at the pipelines.
US and Iraqi sources say forces loyal to Saddam and some disgruntled former NOC employees who were recently sacked for their links to the Baath Party, are behind the majority of strikes.
“We need a lot more protection from the Americans than we're getting,” said Nadhim Thanoon, the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline's chief engineer. “But it seems like they're just too busy looking for Saddam to look after us.” The coalition forces dispute this.
“We don't say `OK, this week we're just going to go after Saddam, and next week we're just going to guard the site.' We have to do it all simultaneously,” said Lt. Col. Guy Shields, a spokesman for the coalition forces. He said the coalition is guarding hundreds of sites across the country and conducting thousands of daily patrols.
But until the attacks are brought under control, villagers such as Kelaf will continue to guard the pipelines around their farmland. |
