AKnews reports that uniformed militants have blown up about 10 machine tools used by Sonangol, Angola’s national oil company, in the province of Nineveh on Thursday.
Sonangol won contracts to develop the al-Najma and al-Qayara oil fields near the provincial capital Mosul in 2009.
The equipment was blown up by IEDs that were placed inside the site, and alhough there were about a dozen Iraqi guards they reportedly did nothing to stop the gunmen, according to police, allegedly because the gunmen threatened them.
Police have detained 10 of the guards for interrogation on suspicion of being involved in the attack.
(Source: AKnews)
the equipment called vibrators and it is owned by sub-contractor company Terra Seis it is seismic Co and number of machines were 8.
cheers
Hi Barry, Since this was written the local guards who were hired to watch the vibrators were released without charge. The 5 locals (two sets of brothers) who lived in villages nearby were arrested for blowing up the equipment. The reason of the dispute was tribal (jobs) in nature but the brothers may have been from the Dawla Islamiyah terrorist group which had threatened Terraseis. The principle security company contracted to guard Terraseis's staff was surprisingly not contracted to guard equipment left in the field. Some say that Sonangol's told Terraseis it was safe up there dispite the security company's warnings that it was difficult area. A costly $5 million dollar mistake for not listening to competent security advice.