Arab commandos conducted their most daring raid today since the Six-Day War when they blew up a 12-inch oil pipeline in the port of Haifa, police said. The commandos struck about 8 a.m. in the city’s fuel harbor. The heat from the destroyed pipe set other pipes afire, spilling about 1,500 tons of blazing oil as firemen from Haifa and neighboring localities fought the blaze with foam for about five hours before controlling it. Israel’s oil supply was undamaged as the pipes were used for refined oil bound for export and not for national consumption.
(In Cairo, the Palestine Armed Struggle Command said that Al Assifa, the military arm of the El Fatah terrorist organization, was responsible for the sabotage.)
Minor fires continued blazing for many hours afterward. Police and soldiers blocked off the area. Police reported finding one unexploded dynamite charge near the blast site and rounded up between 50-60 Arabs.
Haifa is the country’s main port and is located about 50 miles north of Tel Aviv. The site of the explosion is some dozen miles below the Lebanon border and about 32 miles west of the Jordanian and Syrian borders.
Arab guerrillas blew up a segment of the American-owned Trans-Arabian pipeline (Tapline) on May 31 at a point where it transits the occupied Syrian Golan Heights on the way from Saudi Arabia to seaports in Lebanon. Some 8,000 tons spilled into the Sea of Galilee and the Israel Government plugged the line up.
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