Iraq’s national electricity grid nearing collapse

He said that there are 17 high-tension lines running into Baghdad but only two were operational. The rest had been sabotaged.

“When we fix a line, the insurgents attack it the next day,” al-Shimari said.

‘The people are fed up’
In Karbala, provincial spokesman Ghalib al-Daami said a 50 megawatt power station there was shut down for lack of fuel and the whole province had been without water and electricity for past three days.

He said almost half the provincial capital had sewage seeping above ground because pump trucks to clean septic tanks were unable to operate for lack of gasoline. The health threat to citizens was also contaminating crops in the region.

Many people who normally would rely on small home generators can’t afford to buy fuel. Gasoline has shot up to nearly $5 a gallon Karbala residents say, a price that puts the fuel out of range for all but the wealthy.

The cost of living in Karbala is less than half that in Baghdad, but wages are equally low. A taxi driver in Karbala can bring in nearly $9 a day, while the same job in Baghdad, on average, earns a driver about $30 daily.

The lack of electricity is particularly accute at this time of year when average daily temperatures reach between 110 and 120 Fahrenheit.

“We wait for the sunset to enjoy some coolness,” said Qassim Hussein, a 31-year-old day laborer in Karbala. “The people are fed up. There is no water, no electricity, there is nothing, but death. I’ve even had more trouble with my wife these last three days. Everybody is on edge.”

U.S. soldier’s death
Elsewhere, the U.S. military announced the death of a Marine during combat Thursday in Iraq’s western Anbar province. That brings to at least 3,664 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.

The U.S. force also issued a statement saying its forces killed four suspects and captured 33 others Saturday in raids in northern Iraq and along the Tigris River Valley.

And details emerged Saturday about the killing of five brothers kidnapped earlier in the week by gunmen in the northern city of Kirkuk. The five men were painters and were seized as they were on their way to paint a police station in the Rashad area, about 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk, said Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir said.

Police found a small boy—the men’s younger brother—alive near the bodies. The boy, who was unhurt, apparently was brought along to help his brothers, Qadir said.

The boy’s father said his sons were killed after he could not pay a ransom of $100,000.

“If you don’t have money, you must come and take their dead bodies (from the morgue),” Mahmoud Wakaa al-Jibouri said the captors told him by telephone.

He and his family had fled from Mosul only months ago to settle in Kirkuk, believing it was safer.

“I will kill myself. I have no meaning in life after you,” al-Jibouri cried, standing at the gate of a morgue awaiting his sons’ bodies. He kissed each of them before their coffins were closed.

Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, has faced rising ethnic tensions as Arabs and ethnic Turks oppose Kurdish efforts to incorporate the oil-rich city into their nearby autonomous zone.

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