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Kidnapping, attacks cripple northern Iraq oil sector

Militants have disabled Iraq's northern export pipeline since March, and are now targeting other energy infrastructure.
Crude from a burst pipeline at al-Fatha is set on fire in April 2014 in the Tigris River. (STAFF/Iraq Oil Report)

Anti-government militants have detonated the pipeline feeding crude to the Baiji refinery and have kidnapped the head of the Haditha refinery, as northern Iraq's energy sector increasingly suffers from their push to destabilize Iraq.

Less than two weeks before pivotal national elections, the anti-government fighters - which include the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), an al-Qaida splinter group, as well as other Sunni Muslim militias and tribes - have succeeded in creating chaos that has all but shut down the northern oil sector.

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