http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5709443/site/newsweek/While insurgents from the Mahdi militia battled U.S. Marines in Najaf, others were waging a much more subtle—and successful—war on Iraq's long and lonely highways. Their targets are mostly unarmed, unprotected truckers; their tactics, robbery, arson and kidnapping. Over the past month the insurgents have brought civilian trucking into central Iraq to a virtual standstill. Three months ago, for example, 1,500 Jordanian trucks plied Highway 10 between Amman and Baghdad every day. Now only 30 a day make the perilous trip.
Abdul Majid Habashneh, head of the Truckers Association of Jordan, calls the situation "a disaster." He says 30 Jordanian drivers have been killed in the past year, and 300 trucks have been either stolen or lost. Only 4 percent of Jordan's fleet of independent trucks (which once totaled 11,500) are now operating. "It's never been this bad, even during the
of the war," says Habashneh.
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Despite the mayhem, Iraqi and U.S. military officials insist the insurgents' campaign isn't hurting the war effort. "Critical supplies such as food, fuel, spare parts and ammunition will continue to be delivered on time and where needed," says Maj. Richard Spiegel , a spokesman for the Coalition's convoy operations. True, military convoys aren't being attacked for the most part. But many less vital Coalition supplies come in civilian trucks. Muhammed Suleiman Saley, a Jordanian, was carrying ice cream and meat to U.S. bases in Tikrit a month ago when he and his truck disappeared without a trace. When another Jordanian driver, Nawaf Isaf Hussein, took the same route, he carried a false manifest for his cargo of uniforms, hoping it would ensure safe passage. But bandits had already been tipped off. They shot out the wheels of his truck and burned his cargo. "Be glad that you're alive and go back to your family," he says they told him. Even though the U.S. Army now pays as much as $2,500 per trip to a Jordanian driver, four times the normal rate, Hussein doesn't plan to return.
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The sabotage campaign, combined with unrest in southern areas, has cut oil exports from the Basra terminal from an average of 1.9 million barrels a day to 840,000. That's one of the major factors that sent worldwide oil prices above $45 per barrel last week for the first time in decades. "We will be able to pick up these gangsters in a very short time, and we are working on it," vows al-Nakib. That may be wishful thinking. A U.S. contractor says there isn't enough manpower to significantly upgrade highway security. The supply effort is too big and, ominously, the insurgents are getting more aggressive, not less.
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