Two Iraqis killed by own bomb in failed pipeline attack

KIRKUK, Iraq, Sept 27 (AFP) - Two Iraqis were killed Monday in the premature explosion of a bomb they were planning to plant by a crucial export pipeline to Turkey, police in the northern oil centre of Kirkuk said.
"At around 4:00 pm (1200 GMT), we heard an explosion and we expected that the pipeline might have been hit. When we reached the site we found the torn bodies of two men by a pick-up van," Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Hussein told AFP.
"They were apparently trying to plant a bomb by the pipeline, which is just a few metres away from the highway" near the town of Fadha, 90 kilometres (55 miles) west of Kirkuk, he said.
The same pipeline was sabotaged on September 2 in the biggest post-war attack on the country's vital oil infrastructure, halting all exports from the northern fields around Kirkuk for several days.