Guerrillas set a southern oil pipeline ablaze on Saturday, halving Iraq’s crude exports, in the first major sabotage attack since an Iraqi interim government took over on Monday. An oil official said one of two pipelines feeding Iraq’s Gulf terminals was on fire in the Faw Peninsula and a shipping agent said this had cut exports to 960,000 barrels per day. The US Military said it had arrested 51 people and thwarted potential attacks in Baghdad with raids that uncovered a car bomb ‘‘factory’’. Soldiers found four vehicles, being modified for use in attacks along with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and bombs. Meanwhile, a militant group claimed on Saturday that it had beheaded a captive US Marine. The group, called the Ansar Al-Sunna Army, in a statement claimed that it had killed Lebanese-born Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun. “We inform you that the Marine of Lebanese descent has been killed, and you will soon see the movie with your own eyes,” said the statement, signed in the name of the group’s leader, Abu Abdullah Al-Hassan bin Mahmoud. — Reuters
