BAGHDAD, Jan 11 (AFP) - Attacks on oil and electricity infrastructure have cost Iraq 10 billion dollars in revenue, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told state-run Al-Iraqiya television on Tuesday.
"The total cost of direct and indirect losses due to the targeting of oil and electricity infrastructure in Iraq has surpassed 10 billion dollars till now," Allawi said.
"Some of these losses resulted from attacks on oil pipelines feeding storage areas as well as attacking oil tankers carrying imported gasoline" to Iraq.
Allawi was referring to the daily attacks on gasoline tanker trucks heading into the country from Turkey that are often targeted, with the drivers kidnapped or killed.
Last week, Oil Minister Thamer Ghadban warned that insurgents were waging an all-out war on the country's vital oil industry, costing Iraq nearly eight billion dollars in petrol revenue since the March 2003 US-led invasion.
Saboteurs have effectively shut down exports from Iraq's lucrative northern oil fields around Kirkuk, and the country relies on its southern port of Basra to ship its vital revenue earner to the world.
Osama bin Laden ordered his supporters to sabotage oil facilities in Iraq and the Gulf, in an audiotape attributed to the Al-Qaeda leader broadcast on an Islamist website last month.
Insurgents have targeted the anemic power infrastructure as well.
In late December, they fired mortars at the Dura refinery in southwestern Baghdad, which feeds the capital's main power plant.
They also recently set fire to a feeder line to a power plant in Mussayeb, south of Baghdad, but the attack failed to shut the plant down.
Across the country, the electricity supply is sporadic, with many homes enjoying power for no more than three hours a day.
US and Iraqi efforts to restore power have faltered amid constant sabotage and attacks on foreign workers.
01/11/2005 17:35 GMT - AFP