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Iraq oil security chief shot dead

AFP, Kirkuk
Ghazi Talabani, the security chief for Iraq's northern oil fields, was assassinated yesterday outside his home in Kirkuk, Iraqi police said.
"Ten minutes ago, he was attacked by armed men outside his home near the governorate building. He died instantly," said Kirkuk police chief General Turhan Yussef.
"One of his bodyguards was seriously wounded."
Talabani, a cousin of Kurdish political chieftain Jalal Talabani, headed security for the Northern Oil Company (NOC), which presides over oil production in northern Iraq.
The security chief's body was riddled with bullets and delivered
to the morgue in Kirkuk, 255 kilometres north of Baghdad.
The killing was the third major assassination since June 12 when the country's deputy foreign minister was shot dead on his way to work in Baghdad, followed the next day by the murder of an education ministry official.
Talabani was the key link between US forces and NOC and the private security firm Erinys as they tried to shield Iraq's northern fields from attacks.
It was a largely futile battle as constant sabotage on the north's main export line from Kirkuk to the Turkish Mediterranean terminal of Ceyhan had effectively shut down the route since the fall of president Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
Talabani, 54, who studied in
Germany and formerly worked as an engineer for NOC, was charged with the company's security dossier after Saddam was ousted from power. He was very close to his powerful cousin Jalal.
The killing could aggravate the oil-rich city's ethnic tensions, with its volatile melting pot of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.
Late Tuesday, gunmen lobbed a grenade and fired a volley of rocket-propelled grenades at the home of Kirkuk university's dean Abbas Mohammed Athar but he escaped unscathed, Yussef said.
Five Kurds from Kirkuk were shot dead and mutilated on their way home from Baghdad on Monday when their car broke down near Samarra, in the so-called Sunni triangle.
Insurgents have unleashed a torrent of violence since the country's new interim government was introduced on June 1, with at least 149 people killed and 19 car bombs set off.
The anti-coalition forces have also intensified their attacks on the country's infrastructure, carrying out five oil pipeline bombings.
Insurgents shut down the nation's oil exports from its main outlet by the southern port of Basra on Tuesday after blowing up a pipeline to the area's two harbour terminals.
Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi said last Thursday the country had lost more than 200 million dollars (166 million euros) over the past seven months due to 130 separate attacks on its pipeline network.
Iraq has the world's second-largest proven reserves at some 115 billion barrels, but production has been sharply reduced by more than two decades of war, Saddam's neglect and 13 years of UN sanctions.
US overseer Paul Bremer's departing national security advisor David Gompert told AFP Sunday the threat from anti-coalition groups, particularily foreign fighters and trained operatives from Saddam's former intelligence service, had grown deadlier with time.
He said it would take months and months before a new Iraqi government, linked with popular support, could seriously hobble the insurgency.
In fact, the capture of Saddam and others on America's 55 most-wanted list in Iraq has only liberated the jailed dictator's security veterans, giving them greater autonomy and room to maneuver, Gompert said.