Corruption Watch: January 23, 2004

By Richard Giragosian

As with all models of asymmetrical warfare, a central element in the strategy of the Iraqi insurgency has been to attack weak point targets of least resistance, mainly through rudimentary attacks on supply lines, transports, or convoys and sabotage of the most vulnerable points of the Iraqi infrastructure. Seeking to enhance the disruptive effects of their attacks, the insurgents have also implemented specific attacks on the networks of oil pipelines. Tactically, these attacks seek to disrupt the overall reconstruction effort and, with the Iraqi oil sector playing such a significant role both in terms of post-conflict economics and regional geopolitics, also serve as a major psychological blow to the stabilization effort.

These attacks on pipelines have centered on the inherent vulnerabilities of the pipeline networks, an element of the infrastructure that although fairly easy to repair, remains difficult to defend. Additionally, insurgents have attacked related targets: electrical grids and transmission lines, oil installations and facilities, and storage tanks.

The Vulnerability of Pipelines: Fostering a North-South Divide

With a network of some 6000 kilometers of oil pipelines, the simplicity of acts of sabotage and damage offer a relatively easy and inviting target for insurgents. The attacks on oil production in the northern sector of Iraq, for example, is seen as one of the most daunting short-term obstacles to the imperative of reconstructing the country's energy sector. Oil industry analysts have affirmed that the oil field sabotage in the north is now markedly greater than in the south of the country, where oil production has risen steadily over the past months.

Some Iraqi oil, perhaps as much as 200,000-300,000 barrels per day (bpd), is being reinjected into oil reservoirs in the north due to constraints on both domestic processing ability as well as export outlets. As of August 2003, roughly 40 percent of northern Iraqi production was being transferred to the Baiji refinery, with the balance reinjected into the fields, ostensibly to maintain pressure. This means, however, that crude oil production is overstated by a level equivalent to the volume of oil reinjected (as it is not available for refining or export, but is still counted as production).

As of December 2003, total oil production in Iraq recovered to a daily average of almost 2 million barrels per day (mbd), excluding the crude oil that is being reinjected, with exports reaching almost 1.5 million mbd. But the vast majority of that output is from the southern fields, with the targeting of the northern sector seriously hindering production in the northern fields. This north-south divide also has important implications for domestic politics and stability, and exacerbates the complexities of power between the self-sufficient Kurds in the north, the emboldened Shi'ites in the south and the disgruntled Sunnis in between.

The key factor constraining future growth in Iraqi oil production centers on its export capacity. Current exports of crude oil are limited to only one external route: passage through the Mina Al-Bakr terminal on the Persian Gulf. This reliance on a sole export route is an inherent restraint on potential export expansion, especially as the Mina Al-Bakr terminal is now nearing its operational capacity. And although there are plans to reopen a second port facility at the nearby Khor Al-Amaya, with an initial capacity of about 500,000 bpd, this is not likely in the short term. This constraint only elevates the strategic importance of the export pipeline route to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

The northern pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan was attacked twice in June 2003 and the pipeline from the giant Rumeila field in the south was also blown up twice by insurgents. With a nominal capacity of 1.6 mbd, the 480-kilometer Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline accounted for some 40 percent of Iraqi pre-war oil exports, but has yet to fully reopen since the March/April 2003 war for any sustained use beyond tests of its general technical condition. The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline is also expected to be limited to only about 500,000 bpd for the medium term. Nevertheless, this pipeline is strategically important but is an especially vulnerable target given its route southwest through Bayji in the "Sunni Triangle" where resistance is strongest, before turning north towards Turkey.

The Economic Costs

According to some market analyses, the level of attacks in the northern fields seriously questions the likelihood for any resumption of crude oil exports through the oil pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea. The economic costs of these attacks and disruptions are also serious. Specifically, the blockage of oil exports from the northern fields to the port of Ceyhan costs Iraq in two ways. The first economic cost stems from the fact that a functioning and secure export route, such as the route to Ceyhan, offers a fairly quick avenue toward a significant rise in the total Iraqi output, perhaps by as much as an additional 1 million bpd. This is seen in the levels that Iraq achieved several years before the March/April 2003 war even despite the poor overall state of its oil infrastructure.

The second economic cost is just as important, particularly as it affects the most vulnerable of the population. The sabotage of the oil industry directly affects the Iraqi population by creating sudden and severe shortages of refinery products such as gasoline and, as sabotage of targets ranging from pipelines to electricity stations that provide power to refineries, coupled with technical breakdowns due to faulty machinery, have led to a chronic shortage of gasoline and heating oil throughout much of the country.

The resulting shortages of crucial oil products also lead to greater Iraqi frustration and anger, and exacerbate a lessening of credibility and legitimacy for the coalition. For example, as the price of the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has doubled in recent months, all Iraqi families are affected since they rely on it for all cooking, and especially for the "hobutz" flat bread, a basic staple for all Iraqi families.

To offset these shortages in the shorter term, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has begun a broad effort to import gasoline from Kuwait, although this has led to some problems with allegations of unfair/improper pricing arrangements with Kuwaiti suppliers. Additional imports of oil products by truck from Turkey were also curtailed in late 2003, as drivers have come under increased attack on northern roads.

The Nature of Attacks on Pipelines and Infrastructure

There are generally two types of these attacks: the first comprising a general looting and plundering of the oil infrastructure, including fields, pumping stations, pipelines, and refineries. In this first category, elements of organized (and unorganized) crime are involved, as demonstrated with the seizure of a barge carrying 1,000 tons of stolen Iraqi oil. Smugglers are typically shipping oil to Iran, which then re-flags and re-exports it.

The second type of attacks is a much more serious threat and comes from the real insurgency, comprising members of the opposition, including Ba'ath or radical Sunni groups like Ansar al-Islam, and fringe Al-Qaeda elements.

Defending and Responding to the Attacks

The most important aspect of defending the pipeline network has been the formation of an Iraqi Facilities Protection Force, a form of infrastructure police that utilizes native Iraqis to monitor and guard against pipeline sabotage. First announced in September 2003, the administration initially sought $60 million to train and equip an "oil infrastructure security force," whose sole purpose will be protecting Iraq's oil facilities. Additional funding was also sought for a "quick reaction pipeline repair team" that would be dispatched to damaged pipelines within 96 hours after the site had been secured. The plan also included measures to provide "continuous personal security" to Iraq's oil minister and his director-generals.

The CPA has also sought to enhance energy security through a complicated combination of security arrangements utilizing U.S. military personnel, independent security contractors, and local tribes living along the pipeline routes. Securing the full 480-kilometer segment of the Ceyhan pipeline is a priority of this plan and the number of Iraqi guards has been steadily increasing past the initial 4,000, with more local tribes being hired to guard the infrastructure.

By November 2003, the plan was progressing rapidly and Colonel Robert Nicholson, chief engineer of the 4th Infantry Division based in northern Iraq, confirmed a force would be in place by mid-November. The force, dubbed Task Force Shield, consists of U.S. military personnel, independent security contractors and local tribes living along the nearly 1000-kilometer pipeline who have been employed to protect it from saboteurs.

The reliance on a mix of private contractors for pipeline security has been somewhat controversial, however. A $39.5 million contract was signed in August 2003 with the Erinys International security firm of South Africa to improve security along the northern pipeline system. This firm, an international business-risk consultant, is engaged in the recruitment, screening, and hiring of some 6,500 Iraqis to guard 140 key installations, including oil wellheads, pipelines and refineries, and electricity and water facilities.

Although this firm is also engaged in providing "protection services" to such high-profile contractors as Bechtel and Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root, little is actually known of Erinys International. The Johannesburg-based company is barely a year old, and although its website names five managers and directors, most of whom have been affiliated with Armor Holdings, a Florida-based security company and Defense Systems Limited, a British company which merged with Armor in 1997, its ownership structure remains opaque.

This firm and its staff have been further plagued by a series of questions over its security work in the Niger Delta and Angola, its role in protecting the British Petroleum pipeline in Colombia, and have been subjected to allegations of human rights violations at the Ashanti gold mine in Ghana.

In addition to Erinys, other key players in this privatized security effort include DynCorp, which is recruiting and training the revamped Iraqi police force, and Northrop's subsidiary Vinnell, which is implementing a $48 million contract to train a new Iraqi Army.

Conclusion

The outlook for the Iraqi pipeline security, and for overall energy security, corresponds to the outlook for the broader security situation in the country as a whole. For both energy security and overall stability, the key determinant will be the formation of an effective Iraqi force capable of meeting the daily threats posed by the insurgency to the security of both the energy sector and to the population at large. But the imperative of the economic reconstruction and the need for reliable energy to offset shortages and disruptions in electricity and heating mandate a comprehensive safeguarding of the vulnerable oil sector.

Pattern of Attacks Targeting Pipelines and Related Infrastructure

2003

June

12 June : Attack along the 960 kilometer pipeline that carries crude oil from Iraq's northern fields near Kirkuk to Turkey's port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea.

19 June: Explosion in Bayji refinery complex about 200 kilometers north of Baghdad.

22 June : Explosion in natural gas line near Hit, a city about 152 kilometers northwest of Baghdad.

23 June: Gas pipeline explosion outside the town of Abidiyah Gaarbiga, near the Syrian border in western Iraq.

24 June: Explosion near Barwanah pipeline carries crude to Al-Dawrah refinery in Baghdad.

26 June: Explosion near Al-Fatha near the River Tigris

July

29 July: Attack on pipeline near Al-Basrah

31 July: Saboteurs blew up part of a pipeline near Bayji

August

12 August: Attack near Al-Taji near Baghdad

15 August: Explosion near Bayji

16 August: Explosion near Bayji

September

8 September: Attack on pipeline from the Jabour oil field 32 kilometers southeast of Kirkuk to the main pipeline that originates there

18 September: Attack on pipeline from Kirkuk to Ceyhan

October

11 October: Attack on pipeline from Zab to Kirkuk

16 October: Pipeline explosion near the city of Hadeetha, 200 kilometers northwest of Baghdad

23 October: Explosion near natural gas pipeline 48 kilometers south of Mosul

23 October: Bomb attack on an oil pipeline 240 kilometers north of Baghdad

November

1 November: Explosion at oil pipeline about 15 kilometers north of Tikrit

4 November: Explosion at a pipeline plant in Zumar, 60 kilometers northwest of Mosul

10 November: Mohammed al-Zibari, distribution manager for the Oil Distribution Company was shot and wounded in the northern city of Mosul in what seems to be the first assassination attempt on officials from an Iraqi oil firm. Zibari's son was killed in the attack.

17 November: Blast 2 kilometers east of the Bayji refinery, at a pipeline taking fuel oil to the Daura refinery, in a southern suburb of Baghdad. Resulting damage on the power supply line to the 300,000 bpd Bayji refinery, located 250 kilometers north of Baghdad, and forced a two-day electricity shutdown.

18 November: Explosion on oil pipeline in the region of Mashruh Al-Therthar, southwest of the city of Samarra. The pipeline feeds the Daura refineries in Baghdad.

22 November: Abdel Salam Qanbar, an Iraqi police colonel in charge of security for oil installations in the northern city of Mosul was shot and killed by unknown attackers in a vehicle.

22 November: Club inside the Iraqi Northern Oil Company compound in Kirkuk, 240 kilometers north of Baghdad, was hit during the night by mortar shells wounding three foreign nationals.

23 November: Blast on a pipeline transporting gas from the Jambur oil field to the Bayji refinery caused fire so huge its glow at night is visible from Kirkuk, 30 kilometers north of Jambur.

26 November: Oil pipeline linking oil fields in northern Iraq to the Bayji refinery on fire near the village of Sharqat, about 48 kilometers north of Bayji.

December

9 December: Explosion on a gas pipeline that runs from Kirkuk to a bottled gas factory north of Baghdad.

10 December: Explosion at point 135 kilometers west of Kirkuk on oil pipeline linking the Bayji and Daura refineries.

19 December: Blaze on a pipeline south of Baghdad causing significant leakage. 20 December: Rocket-propelled grenades hit storage tanks in southern Baghdad. The resulting fires burned about 2.6 million gallons of gasoline. Also, rocket-propelled grenades cause pipeline explosion in the Al-Mashahda area 24 kilometers north of Baghdad.

21 December: Explosion on pipeline in the Al-Mashahda region, 50 kilometers north of Baghdad. Pumping station near Bayji refinery attacked with mortars.

22 December: Explosion in Riad about 45 kilometers west of Kirkuk on fuel pipeline between Kirkuk's oil fields and Iraq's biggest refinery in Baiji, parallel to the crucial pipeline between Kirkuk and the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Fire on pipeline supplying Bayji refinery with crude from the oil fields of Kirkuk at point about 50 kilometers northeast of refinery.

2004

January

7 January: Explosion hits pipeline connecting oil fields to a pumping station in the area around Hassiba, 135 kilometers west of Kirkuk. Northern Oil Company Director General Adel Kazzaz said, "The fuel line was used for domestic market needs and filling up tankers that export crude."

Sources: Coalition Provisional Authority, U.S. Army Central Command, Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.

References

Cohen, Ariel, "The Comeback. Iraqi oil returns," National Review Online, 26 August 2003.

Entous, Adam, "Bush wants pipeline security force," "The Washington Post," 24 September 2003.

Murphy, Dan, "Sabotage still clogs Iraq's oil," "Christian Science Monitor," 4 November 2003.

Recknagel, Charles, "Iraq: Sabotage Continues To Block Oil Exports From Northern Fields," rferl.org, 4 December 2003.

Richard Giragosian is a freelance analyst who frequently contributes to RFE/RL Regional Analysis Reports and "RFE/RL Newsline."

Two members of the Red Brigades urban guerilla group were detained in Egypt during a joint Italian-Egyptian police operation, the BBC reported on 14 January.

Rita Alganti, 46, who was convicted in absentia for the 1978 murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, and Maurizio Falessi, 50, convicted for attempted murder, were both arrested at Cairo airport as they attempted to board a flight using false identification. They were immediately deported to Italy.

Alganti, according to the BBC, is also believed to have been an accomplice in three other political murders. She is married to Alessio Casimirri, who is wanted in the Moro murder and who is believed to be in hiding in Nicaragua.

The Red Brigades ("Brigate Rosse") terrorist organization was first formed in 1970. The reputed founder of the Red Brigades was Renato Curcio and the group began its activities by firebombing factories and warehouses in Milan.

At the height of its activities in the 1970s, the Red Brigades were believed to comprise 400 to 500 full-time members, 1,000 members who helped periodically, and a few thousand supporters who provided funds and shelter.

In the 1990s a group claiming to be the Red Brigades claimed responsibility for various violent attacks, including those against a senior Italian government adviser, a U.S. base in Aviano, and the NATO Defense College.

In October 2003, Italian police arrested nine suspects believed to be members of the Red Brigades in Rome, Florence, Pisa, and Sardinia in conjunction with the murders of two government advisors working on labor reforms.

Earlier that year, in March, the police arrested Nadia Desdemonda Lioce, an alleged Red Brigades member after a shootout on a Rome-Florence train. Lioce had encrypted information in her handheld computer, along with a phone card and a mobile phone which led the police to the arrests in October 2003.

According to "Jane's Intelligence Review" on 15 January, computerized analysis of telephone traffic, including calls made from mobile phones and public telephone booths allowed investigators to trace the movement of suspects during the time of murders of the two government advisors. This information led them to make the arrests in October.

In November 2002, Argentine police arrested a man in Buenos Aires suspected of being a leading member of the Red Brigades. The man, Leonardo Bertulazzi, 51, was head of the group's logistics in the 1970s and 1980s. RK

Muhammad Mahdi Akif was elected by secret ballot to be the new guide-general of the Muslim Brotherhood on 14 January according to the Al-Jazeera website (http://English.aljazeera.net). Akif joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1948. He was sentenced to death for involvement in a failed assassination attempt on Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasser in 1954 but was released in 1974 after which he left to live in Germany where he headed the group's Islamic center. In 1981, he was elected to the Egyptian Parliament where he served until 1990.

The Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikwan Al-Musilmeen) was formed in 1928 by the Egyptian schoolteacher Hasan al-Banna as a loose coalition of Sunni Muslim fundamentalist guerilla groups. After the failed attempt on Nasser's life in 1954 six of its leaders were tried and executed for treason, and many others were imprisoned. In the 1960s and 1970s the brotherhood's activities remained largely clandestine.

An uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood in the Syrian city of Hama in February 1982 was crushed by the government of Safiz al-Assad at a cost of thousands of lives. Describing this massacre, Thomas Friedman in his book "From Beirut to Jerusalem" (Anchor Books, New York, 1990) wrote that "Amnesty International, in its November 1983 report on Syria, said estimates [of the dead in Hama] ranged from 10,000 to 25,000 dead, mostly civilians; thousands more were left homeless."

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, according to Said K. Aburish's biography "Arafat from Defender to Dictator" (Bloomsbury, New York, 1998), fought in the ranks of the Brotherhood in 1948 in Gaza but was never proven to have been a card-carrying member of the organization, although many claim that the Brotherhood supported his election as Palestine Liberation Organization chairman. After the failed assassination of Nasser by the Brotherhood, Arafat was detained by the Egyptian police and later released.

Khalil Al Wazir, also known as Abu Jihad, Arafat's deputy commander of Al-Fatah, was a member of the Brotherhood, as was Abu Iyad, another prominent member of the Fatah leadership.

According to Rohan Gunaratna's study "Inside Al-Qaeda" (Berkley Books. New York, 2002), "Organizationally, Al-Qaeda is the natural offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a consequence of its political agenda, but unlike the latter it has never compromised its original aims, converting the rhetoric of the Muslim Brotherhood into concrete action.... It built on the Brotherhood, drawing on its committed followers, its structures and experience." RK