Efforts to resume oil exports from the Iraqi north stumble

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Efforts to resume vital oil exports from northern Iraq -- halted for weeks by sabotage -- stumbled once more Saturday when the main pipeline to Turkey sprang a leak, Turkish officials said.

Elsewhere, U.S. troops and Iraqi police arrested 11 people, three of them women, who were suspected of links to attacks against U.S. soldiers, witnesses said. The arrests came after the deadliest day for American soldiers in a month.

The four dead included a lieutenant colonel, the highest-ranking officer killed since the war began March 20.

Iraq's Oil Ministry refused to confirm either the resumption or the suspension of shipments through the 600-mile northern pipeline from the oil city of Kirkuk to Turkey.

However, Turkish officials said Iraq resumed pumping oil through the pipeline Saturday morning but stopped the flow after about two hours because of a leak. The Turks said the leak was not due to sabotage, although the line has been targeted in the past by saboteurs.

Turkey's Anatolia news agency quoted Gurhan Unal, a top official at Turkey's Ceyhan port, as saying repairs were under way. A Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the flow could resume as early as Sunday.

The brief pumping -- the first flow through the pipeline in two months -- illustrates the challenge Iraq faces in restoring its oil industry, essential to the nation's reconstruction.

Frequent attacks on Iraq's pipelines have slowed the flow of oil. A brief pumping through the northern line in August --the first since the war -- was halted because of sabotage and other problems.

The northern pipeline is crucial to Iraq's economic recovery because it carries crude from the vast northern fields that provide nearly half of Iraq's exports to world markets.

Although postwar oil sales resumed in June, the supply comes from the south, amounting to 1 million barrels of oil a day compared to the 2.1 million Iraq pumped before the U.S.-led invasion.

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq, has said the country loses $7 million a day when the northern pipeline is not in service.

Concern over the safety of the pipeline is but one of the manifold security issues facing the U.S.-led coalition as it seeks to restore order six months after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.

In remarks released Saturday by a German magazine, Britain's envoy to Iraq said elections are possible within a year and Iraqi oil production can be increased threefold in five years if the coalition can improve security.

"It is clear that we have not yet succeeded in winning the confidence of the people," Jeremy Greenstock told Der Spiegel magazine. "Above all, the security situation in some regions must be urgently improved."

To that end, U.S. forces sealed off the area around Khaldiyah west of Baghdad and arrested eight men and three women on suspicion of links to the resistance, local residents said. Khaldiyah is located in the "Sunni Triangle" where opposition to the Americans is most intense.

There was no comment from U.S. authorities about the raids, which took place one day after U.S. forces suffered four deaths in two separate attacks. It was the bloodiest daily death toll since Sept. 18, when three soldiers were killed in an ambush in Tikrit. Nearly 20 soldiers were reported wounded Friday in several clashes across the country.

Three of the soldiers were killed in a confrontation early Friday near the home of a cleric in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala. Ten Iraqis, including two police, were also killed. Among the dead was Lt. Col. Kim S. Orlando, 43, commander of the 716th Military Police Battalion.

On Saturday, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. George Krivo said the Americans in Karbala came under fire as they were helping Iraqi police investigate reports of armed men on the streets after curfew.

Krivo declined to give further details, saying incident was still under investigation. He also did not explain why a senior officer was leading the patrol.

The latest deaths raised to 101 the number of U.S. soldiers who have died by hostile fire since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1. A total of 211 soldiers have been killed in fighting and attacks in Iraq since the war began.

In other developments:

The Dutch Defense Ministry reported that Dutch marines clearing munitions in southern Iraq have called in British and American weapons inspectors after finding "a few dozen suspect shells." The 130-mm artillery shells found Oct. 8 showed "several indications of some kind of chemical reaction," a Dutch spokesman said, although he added they could be regular munitions discolored by heat and sun.

In Baghdad, supporters of firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr complained that 12 members of a neighborhood council they had selected to replace one appointed by the coalition had been arrested. Coalition spokesman Charles Heatly confirmed that a dozen al-Sadr "loyalists" were arrested Thursday after they illegally took over a district council building.