Firefighters have been battling a fire at an oil refinery that supplies much of the fuel to produce power for Baghdad.

Iraqi oil officials said on Monday that the plant had been hit by a Katyusha-type rocket.

However, the US military later issued a statement saying that the blaze "was the result of an industrial accident".

"The fire which began around 9am [0600 GMT] was initially believed to have been started by indirect fire," the statement said.

But when troops arrived on the scene "its cause was determined to be the result of pipe explosion".

Firefighters struggled to bring the fire under control as black smoke billowed over the al-Dora refinery south of the Iraqi capital.

Storage tank hit

Assim Jihad, a spokesman for Iraq's oil ministry, said that a rocket had landed on a storage tank for refiined crude.

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