Ambassador warned of Azerbaijan oil pipeline risk

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A British ambassador warned that emergency services would not cope if terrorists blew up a strategically important oil pipeline heavily supported by the UK government, a Whitehall document shows.

The £2bn pipeline, built by a BP-led consortium, is a vital source of crude oil for Britain and the west. Up to a million barrels a day are pumped through the pipe, which runs more than 1,100 miles from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey.

Campaigners opposed the pipeline, which opened last year, as it crossed seven war zones, damaged the environment and exacerbated global warming. They told the government before it gave financial backing to the project that it was "a major security risk".

The Azerbaijan government has claimed to have intelligence that local insurgents and al-Qaida are planning to sabotage the pipeline. In a "restricted" telegram in 2004 Laurie Bristow, Britain's ambassador in Azerbaijan, warned with "growing concern" that if it were attacked the Azerbaijan government was incapable of deploying effective emergency teams.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1854761,00.html