Georgia: Russia targets key oil pipeline with over 50 missiles
By Damien McElroy in Rustavi, Georgia10 Aug 2008
Deep craters pockmark the landscape south of the Georgian capital Tblisiin a Y-shaped pattern straddling the British-operated pipeline.The attack left two deep holes less than 100 yards either side of apressure vent on the pipeline. Shrapnel of highly engineered munitionslitters the area.
There was no visible damage to the pipeline. Its vulnerability is summedup by a yellow hazard sign next to the vent warning against digging inthe area. Anyone venturing on to the site is warned against smoking.
Local police recorded 51 strikes. "I have no doubt they wanted to targetthe pipeline, there is nothing else here," said Giorgi Abrahamisvili, apoliceman who witnessed the attack."It was terribly intense, the smell of cordite spread everywhere. I hadto abandon my car and hide in a ditch but the jets weren't interested inother targets.
"BP operates the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports one percent of the world's oil needs, or one million barrels a day from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean. A spokesman played down the impact ofthe strike, pointing out that pumping was suspended last week because ofa terrorist attack in Turkey."At the moment the pipeline is not running at any capacity, becausethere was a fire," the spokesman said.Georgia is a crucial link in a three country energy corridor vital toWestern Europe's oil and gas supply. The £2 billion pipeline is the onlymajor conduit for Central Asian resources not under Russian control.
The Kremlin under Vladimir Putin, Russia's former president and nowprime minister, used gas exports to Europe as a tool of foreign policy.Reduced supplies to eastern Europe forced Russia's neighbours to curtailpro-Western ambitions. Western Europe, especially Germany, isdangerously vulnerable to reduced supplies from Russia at times ofpolitical tension.Georgian politicians accused Russia of waging the war, which Moscow hasportrayed as an intervention on behalf of beleaguered renegade enclaves,to achieve wider strategic goals.
"They need control of energy routes," the Georgian president, MikhailSaakashvili said. "They need sea ports. They need transportationinfrastructure. And primarily, they want to get rid of us."Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, alluded to the importanceof the pipeline yesterday as he prepared to travel to Georgia and Russiaon a mediation mission. He said: "The strategic nature of this region isa secret for no one."
Attacks beyond the borders of the two disputed regions of Abkhazia andSouth Ossetia provoked a mixture of fear and anger among Georgians, whosee Russia at war with the country as a whole."Churchill should never have helped the Soviet Union," said a localpolice chief. "I am not a Nazi but Russia is a curse in the world."
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