| Comes as a surprise, huh? |
Fighting around the southern Iraq oil fields that U.S.-led forces had previously thought were secure has driven out civilian firefighters trying to put out the oil well blazes, the top firefighter said Monday. "It's not nearly as safe as they said it was," said Brian Krause, vice president and senior blowout specialist for Houston-based Boots and Coots. "We're kind of sitting ducks out there."
The Iraqi resistance in the oil fields challenges U.S. claims that southern Iraq is quickly falling under allied control. U.S. Marines declared the southern Rumailah oil fields in Iraq unsafe for journalists to visit Monday, forcing the cancellation of a trip under Marine escort intended to give the media a first-hand view of the blazing wells.
Krause said that he had been told that Iraqi fighters dressed as civilians had clashed with British forces near the oil fields Sunday night, killing two British troops and forcing the evacuation of his firefighting team. Lynn Wray, a spokeswoman for the British military, said that she could not confirm the fighting or location but said that two British soldiers were missing in southern Iraq. U.S. military officials said that armed Iraqis in civilian clothes, some of them possibly using women and children as screens, were operating in the southern Rumailah area. |