Four killed in Iraq fuel protests: police

By Chalak Abdullah

RAHINAWA, Iraq (Reuters) – Security forces in Iraq shot
dead four people protesting against a recent hike in fuel
prices on Sunday, police said, after rioters set cars and
petrol stations on fire near the northern oil city of Kirkuk.

Iraq, which has the world’s third biggest oil reserves, is
grappling with its latest fuel crisis and price rises imposed
by a deal with the International Monetary Fund; longer than
usual queues have built up at petrol stations and many who
voted in last month’s peaceful election talk of disillusion.

In Baghdad, eight bombs exploded across the capital on New
Year’s morning, causing minor damage and only a handful of
injuries; U.S. commanders have been congratulating themselves
of late on disrupting deadlier suicide car bomb attacks.

In Rahinawa, near Kirkuk, security forces opened fire on
young men as they marched down a main street protesting a lack
of basic amenities and the doubling and tripling of prices for
vehicle fuel and household gas 13 days ago, police said.

At least four protesters were killed and two wounded,
police Captain Salaam Zangana said. A curfew was imposed.
Police said it was unclear whether U.S. or Iraqi forces fired.

A spokesman for U.S. forces said U.S. troops wounded only
one person in a car at a checkpoint and said there were no
other gunshot casualties in the hospital.

The protesters set fire to an office building belonging to
Iraq’s North Oil Company, a police colonel said. Four cars and
two petrol stations were also set ablaze.

The protest was the latest in a wave of demonstrations
against the fuel price hike across the country — an increase
that heralds cuts in huge subsidies that are planned as part of
an IMF economic reform and aid package signed last month.

Despite its vast oil reserves, Iraq has struggled to deal
with energy supply at home; it spends billions importing fuel,
as frequent sabotage attacks on oil infrastructure and
equipment ravaged by years of war and sanctions crimp oil
production and refining operations.

The country’s precarious supply system was thrown into
further disarray when the government shut its main northern
refinery over 10 days ago, prompting long lines at petrol
stations amidst fears the pumps would run dry.

NEW YEAR’S BLASTS

In what appeared to be yet another attack on an oil
facility, a bomb exploded near the big Dora refinery in
southern Baghdad but only succeeded in setting a pipeline
connected to a power plant on fire.

The explosion followed eight other bomb blasts that greeted
Baghdad residents on New Year’s morning, wounding at least
three people, police said.

Two blasts went off near restaurants in eastern Baghdad and
another two targeted police patrols. At least two explosions
stemmed from car bombs.

Just hours before, the night sky over Baghdad lit up with
red tracer bullets and sparkling fireworks as residents
celebrated New Year’s eve.

During the evening, the teenage son of the Palestinian
cultural attaché to Iraq was shot dead as he sat in a car
listening to music. It was mot clear who killed him.

Al Qaeda militants in Iraq have often targeted staff from
embassies of Muslim countries in an effort to stop them from
recognizing Iraq’s U.S.-backed government.

On Saturday, the group released five Sudanese embassy staff
after Khartoum announced it was shutting its Baghdad mission
following their kidnappings.

In another reprieve for an Arab hostage, a Lebanese man who
was kidnapped in Iraq in September has been released, the
official Lebanese National News Agency reported on Sunday.

A previously unknown Islamist militant group, the
Propagation of Virtue and Prohibition of Vice, had said it
captured Garabet Jekerjian for supplying alcohol to Iraqi and
U.S. forces in Iraq.

Violence continued unabated elsewhere in the country,
building on a steady stream of attacks since a dropoff in their
numbers during last month’s parliamentary elections.

Sixteen civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded
targeting a U.S. patrol near the northern oil refining town of
Baiji, local authorities said.

(Additional reporting by Aref Mohammed in Kirkuk and Aseel
Kami, Deepa Babington, Mariam Karouny, Gideon Long and Alastair
Macdonald in Baghdad)