Abductors Claim Marine Beheaded

The damage to the 42-inch pipeline, which snakes through southern Iraq, reduced Iraqi exports from about 1.7 million gallons daily to about 1.2 million gallons, Uloum said. The other main pipeline was unaffected.

"The capacity is a bit low now, but within one or two days it will be back up," Uloum said.

A U.S. Army spokesman said the sweep of the bomb facility, in southern Baghdad, led to at least nine similar sites and netted weapons, rocket launchers, C-4 explosives, TNT, blasting caps, three safes containing money, and bombs in various stages of production.

Lt. Col. James Hutton called the operation a blow to anti-Iraqi forces.

"Denying the enemy of the Iraqi people the weapons he uses to kill Iraqi civilians is always a remarkable success," said Hutton, the 1st Cavalry Division's public affairs officer. Soldiers detained 51 people for questioning and said they believed they had captured key members of a group that had planted roadside bombs.

In the town of Dawr, north of Baghdad, local reports said hundreds of Iraqis staged a pro-Hussein demonstration, complete with placards and banners lauding him. The town is in a former Hussein stronghold near where he was captured last December hiding in a hole.

Meanwhile, the U.S. general who was suspended in May over allegations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, told the BBC in an interview Saturday that she had met a man who told her he was Israeli who was conducting interrogations at the prison.

Karpinski said she met an interpreter who said, "I do some of the interrogation here. I speak Arabic, but I'm not an Arab. I'm from Israel."

Israel's Foreign Ministry told the BBC that reports of Israeli troops or interrogators in Iraq were "completely untrue." A top U.S. military official said he believed the claim was an urban legend evolving from the fact that one private contract employee had the surname Israel. "Nothing I have seen indicates we had anyone but government contractors and uniformed soldiers there," the official said on condition of anonymity.