Gunmen hit civilian convoy in western Iraq

Iraq's oil minister said a weekend pipeline bombing had cut petroleum exports by 30 percent.

The convoy was operated by a subsidiary of Kellogg, Brown & Root, which is in turn a subsidiary of Halliburton, said the officials. The attack took place near the town of Rutba, 230 miles west of Baghdad, and an unknown number of vehicles were destroyed, they said.

Meanwhile, an American civilian was found dead with signs of trauma on the corpse near a highway overpass in Baghdad, the U.S. military said today.

The man, whose identity was not released, was not connected with the U.S. military or civilian government mission in Iraq, a military spokesman said. The body was discovered Saturday.

Iraq's oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulloum, said that oil exports fell by 30 percent due to the bombing of the southern pipeline but he expected exports to return to normal levels within 24 hours.

Bahr al-Ulloum said the attack, which occurred Saturday on the Faw peninsula, damaged a 50-foot section of pipe cutting exports from an average of 1.7 million barrels a day to one million barrels per day right after the incident.

Exports had risen to 1.1 million barrels by today and were expected to reach full capacity within 24 hours, he said.

Bahr al-Ulloum said the fire was still burning today but was "almost under control."

The attack was considered significant not only because of its impact on the petroleum industry but because it signaled that infrastructure in the once-quiet south was not a target for those opposed to the U.S.-led occupation.

Late Monday, U.S. forces clashed with Shiite Muslim militiamen near the southern end of Kufa, killing at least five Iraqis and injuring 14 others, hospital officials said.

Kufa is located close to Najaf, where radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took refuge last month after U.S. authorities announced they were seeking him in the assassination last year of a moderate cleric.

Residents of the Shiite neighborhood Sadr City today began rebuilding the Baghdad headquarters of al-Sadr, which was destroyed in a tank and helicopter attack by U.S. forces at about midnight Sunday.

At the urging of the al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army, local Shiites brought bricks, cement and gypsum to the site. Parts of the building had already been repaired by midday.

"The city people pulled up their socks when they heard this sorrowful incident," Sheik Malik Swadi said. "Together they embarked on rebuilding the office."

The attack on the office occurred at the end of daylong fighting between U.S. troops and the al-Mahdi Army, which the U.S.-led coalition has vowed to disband. Its leader, al-Sadr, is sought in the assassination last year of a rival cleric in Najaf.

In another attack on foreigners working in Iraq, one Russian worker was killed and two were taken hostage in Iraq, Russia's Foreign Ministry said today. The three were employees of the Interenergoservis company working at the Southern Baghdad power station.

A Russian diplomat in Iraq, Stanislav Tytin, said the incident occurred in Musayyib, about 37 miles south of Baghdad, where the power plant is located.

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