Officials say it's too early to say what cause pipeline fire

TIKRIT, Iraq -- A ferocious blaze raged for a third day at a giant oil pipeline in northern Iraq Sunday, and U.S. military officials said it was too soon to say what triggered the fire. Earlier, Iraqi police officials blamed saboteurs.

Also Sunday, the Danish army reported that one of its soldiers died after being shot during a gunbattle the day before with Iraqis whose truck had been stopped during a routine patrol near Basra.

The soldier was the first Dane to be killed in Iraq since Denmark sent about 400 soldiers this summer to join the international stabilization force in the southern region.

Two Iraqis also died in the shootout Saturday, one was wounded and six were arrested, the Danish army command said in Copenhagen.

The new Iraqi police commander vowed on Saturday to pursue the "conspirators" behind the attack that halted oil exports to Turkey only days after they resumed, cutting off vital income for an economy in shambles.

The crumbling network of pipe had begun pumping oil to Turkey on Wednesday, and the explosion early Friday near Baiji, 125 miles northeast of Baghdad, cut it off completely, acting Iraqi oil minister Thamer al-Ghadaban said in the capital.

Police Brig. Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim, once imprisoned for speaking out against Saddam Hussein, was appointed Saturday to be the top Iraqi law enforcement official. He blamed the explosion on "a group of conspirators who received money from a particular party," which he didn't identify.

"With God's help, we will arrest those people and bring them to justice," Ibrahim said. "The damage inflicted on the pipeline is damage done to all Iraqi people."

But a U.S. military spokes-man said it was too soon to say whether the explosion was an accident or sabotage.

"Until it's cooled off, nobody can say exactly what happened," said Lt. Col. William MacDonald, of the 4th Infantry Division based in Tikrit. People on the ground were still waiting to investigate the cause, he said.

Al-Ghadaban said it would take several days to get the pipeline working again.

'No oil flowing'

The 600-mile pipeline has a diameter of 46 inches. It runs from the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk to the Turkish city of Ceyhan and handles all oil exports to Turkey.

"There is no oil flowing into Turkey right now," said Col. Bobby Nicholson, chief engineer for the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division.

Turkey's semiofficial Anatolia news agency, citing officials, reported that 750,000 barrels were pumped through the pipeline before the explosion. Turkish officials earlier had blamed the pipeline troubles on "telecommunications problems."

Iraq has the world's second-largest proven crude reserves, at 112 billion barrels, but its pipelines, pumping stations and oil reservoirs are dilapidated after more than a decade of neglect. Northern Iraq, site of the giant Kirkuk oil fields, accounts for 40 percent of Iraq's oil production.

Ibrahim was appointed by Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner tasked with rebuilding Iraq's Interior Ministry, as his senior deputy.

Ibrahim had been working as head of the Iraqi police's special investigations unit and he was shot in the right leg during a police raid last month. As well as the weapons seized, that raid also netted a high-ranking member of the Saddam Fedayeen militia.

Further north in Mosul, the police chief survived an assassination attempt, taking two bullets to the leg, the U.S. military reported on Saturday. Two people, apparently bodyguards, were killed and 14 were wounded, said spokes-man Sgt. Danny Martin.

An American soldier was wounded by shrapnel Saturday when a patrol of tanks, armored personnel carriers and Humvees was ambushed 45 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The attackers detonated a roadside bomb made of four 155 mm artillery shells, then opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, said Capt. Jon Casey of the 4th Infantry Division, who was on the patrol.

"We engaged them with our own automatic weapons and called in helicopter support," he said. "We had no further contact and secured the area."

The 4th Infantry Division also announced the detention of Said Ali al-Karim, a Baqouba cleric known as "the prophet" it said had urged violence against Americans and financed Saddam loyalists fighting U.S. forces.

It said al-Karim, which it described as "a counselor to Saddam Hussein," was arrested Monday and could be charged with inciting violence, funding attacks and possessing illegal weapons. It gave no explanation for the delay in reporting his arrest.

Associated Press writers Andrew England in Baqouba and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad contributed to this report.