Suicide Boats Attack Iraqi Oil Installations in Gulf

Three boats launched an apparently coordinated suicide strike Saturday on Iraqi oil installations in the Persian Gulf, killing three American troops and capping a violent day in which five U.S. soldiers were killed when rockets hit their base near Baghdad.

More than two dozen Iraqi civilians died in other attacks.

Three other U.S. troops were wounded when their craft approached one of the attacking boats and the vessel exploded, flipping the coalition craft and throwing the crew into the water, a statement from the U.S. 5th Fleet said.

The attack on Iraq’s two main terminals in the gulf, several miles offshore, is believed to represent the first such maritime strike during the insurgency that began shortly after U.S. troops invaded Iraq last spring and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. The country’s oil pipelines frequently have been targets of sabotage.

The boat attacks recalled the assault on the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen four years ago, when an explosives-laden boat rammed the ship, killing 17 U.S. sailors. The CIA has concluded that Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network planned and executed that operation.

The American deaths Saturday afternoon in the waters near the southern city of Faw came after a dhow -- a traditional Arab-style craft -- approached the Khor al Amaya oil terminal. A coalition ship patrolling in the area launched an eight-member boarding team in an inflatable boat to meet the unidentified craft. The three crew members who would be killed were in the dinghy.

About 20 minutes after that explosion, about 5:20 p.m., the statement said, two small motorized boats were observed approaching the nearby Basra oil terminal complex. Security teams moved to intercept the craft, both of which exploded before reaching the complex, the statement said. There was no tally of the dead attackers.

Coalition forces captured both oil terminals during the first phase of the invasion of Iraq last year in an effort to preclude environmental sabotage by Hussein’s forces. The 5th Fleet patrols the waters, along with Coast Guard and other coalition vessels.

Saturday’s attack occurred not far from Basra, a city that remains in shock from five suicide bombing attacks last week that killed at least 50 people, including 20 children. Police have blamed Al Qaeda for the bombings, and U.S. officials have said the style of attack matches Al Qaeda’s methods, although definitive proof has yet to emerge.

Earlier Saturday, a dawn rocket barrage on a U.S. barracks in Taji, a Baghdad suburb, killed four U.S. soldiers and wounded seven others, the military said. A fifth soldier later died of his wounds. Rockets and mortar rounds frequently target U.S. bases in Iraq, but most land harmlessly. This number of casualties is very unusual, officials said.

U.S. forces later destroyed a truck thought to have served as the launching pad for the rockets, officials said.

More than 100 U.S. troops have died in Iraq this month, the bloodiest since the invasion in March 2003.

Later in the morning, witnesses and hospital officials said, four explosions left at least 14 Iraqis dead and 34 injured in a chicken market and elsewhere in the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a largely Shiite Muslim community that is a hotbed of anti-U.S. sentiment. Many residents blamed U.S. forces for the strikes.

The attacks probably were mortar or rocket fire aimed at a nearby U.S. base, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, chief military spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition. Misguided projectiles fired by the insurgents kill civilians on an almost daily basis in Iraq.

Jassim Ghalib Sakit, 68, and his niece, Zainab Faisal, 6, were killed instantly when a projectile landed on a sidewalk, witnesses said. The explosion blew out windows and sent shrapnel flying into buildings.

At one house, a piece of shrapnel penetrated the pillow of 87-year-old Eidan Jasim while he was taking a nap, witnesses said. He was uninjured.

Later in the afternoon, Associated Press reported, a roadside bomb exploded near a bus south of Baghdad and killed 13 people, including at least one child. The bomb may have been intended for a U.S. convoy passing through the town of Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad, just before the bus. Roadside bombs aimed at U.S. convoys often strike civilian vehicles in Iraq.

Also Saturday, a car bomb exploded in the northern city of Tikrit, killing two policemen and two Iraqi civilians, authorities said. More than 12 were hurt. Officials said they suspected that a suicide bomber was headed for the nearby U.S. base butthe device went off prematurely.

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Special correspondents Said Rifai in Baghdad and Caesar Ahmed in Taji contributed to this report.