A bomb went off under an oil pipeline near the northern city of Beiji on Tuesday, setting off a fire and causing huge quantities of crude oil to spill into the Tigris River, AP quoted a police official as saying. The Iraqi police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the bomb went off before dawn, delaying the firefighters' arrival at the scene to extinguish the blaze. The bomb was placed under a branch of the pipeline from Beiji's al-Fatha district. The U.S. military said in a statement that the part of the pipeline that was hit was some 2 meters (6.8 feet) underground and covered with a slab of concrete.
