Three boats explode at Iraqi oil terminal

The blasts on Saturday evening, appear to be coordinated human bomb attacks, Captain Hisham H Halawi said.

There was no immediate word on casualties or damage from the blasts, he added.

It was the first known maritime attack on Iraqi oil facilities since the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Resistance fighters have been attacking pipelines in the north and south of Iraq, at times disrupting the export of oil.

The first blast came when an occupation warship patrolling the Gulf sighted a small boat near an oil platform, Halawi said. The warship sent a team to the boat, but when they boarded it, the boat exploded, he said.

Halawi said he did not know if there were occupation casualties.

The other boats exploded alongside two oil tankers near the Abbott oil facility south of Iraq's main port, Umm Qasr, he said.

The attack appeared to resemble a 12 October 2000 attack on USS Cole off Yemen, in which an explosives-laden boat rammed the destroyer, killing 17 American sailors. On 6 October 2002, a boat rammed a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen and exploded, killing one crewman.

Both those attacks were blamed on the al-Qaida network.

The oil attacks came three days after near simultaneous car bombings in the southern Iraqi city of

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