Basra Oil Pipe Ignited as Iraq Fighting Worsens
Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 08:54AM 
An attack on an Iraqi oil pipeline has crippled the country's main crude pumping terminals, as fighting between Shi'ite factions and the security forces engulfed the south and centre of the country.
A fire was reported on the Zubair-1 pipeline, the main revenue earner for the Iraqi state, near Basra. The attack effectively brought all exports through Iraq's southern terminals to a halt.
The police chief in the central city of Kut said 44 people died in clashes between followers of the powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi military supported by US forces.
In Baghdad and across the country followers of Sadr staged mass demonstrations to denounce the government, which on Tuesday launched a military operation targeting militias in Basra.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have joined mass rallies in the Sadr City, Kadhimiya and Shula districts of Baghdad, an interior ministry source said.
"We demand the downfall of the [Nouri al-Maliki] government. It does not represent the people. It represents Bush and Cheney," said Hussein Abu Ali, a Sadr City resident.
Commanders of the Mahdi army, Sadr's militia, declared that they could withstand any assault the government and its US army allies could mount.
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