In the "Just Because We're Taking Their Oil Doesn't Mean They'll Let it Go Gladly" Department

So are they liberating us from the pursuit of liberating their oil? You decide:

Saboteurs attacked the oil pipeline linking Iraq's northern and southern fields on Sunday, a day after they hit another pipeline that cut exports by half, officials and witnesses said.

Columns of smoke were rising hundreds of meters from a section of the strategic pipeline in the Hawijat al-Fallujah area, some 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad.

Industry insiders say northern crude was being secretly pumped through the pipeline for export through two offshore southern terminals.

Northern crude is usually pumped through a pipeline to Turkey, but sabotage has forced Iraq to divert flows south.

Exports from the southern terminals, which account for all of Iraq's oil exports, fell to 960,000 barrels per day on Saturday after saboteurs blew a hole in one of two pipelines feeding them.

Iraq used to export around 2 million bpd before the attack on the southern pipeline on Saturday.

The attack on the smaller of two pipelines feeding two offshore terminals stopped operations at the Khor al-Amya terminal and restricted flows to the bigger Basra terminal, from where most Iraqi oil is exported.