Oil Fields

The Iraqi government condemned Friday a reported cross-border raid by Iranian soldiers who allegedly raised their flag at an Iraqi oil field near the border. "The Iraqi government considers this matter a transgression on Iraq's sovereignty," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Friday night in a television interview. Dabbagh said Iraq would deliver a formal written protest to Iran's ambassador in Baghdad. Iraqi officials said Iranian soldiers lowered an Iraqi flag at the Fakka oil field in Maysan province and hoisted an Iranian flag.

KUWAIT CITY -- Kuwait pleaded yesterday for international help in quenching its fields of burning oil, a job complicated by poisonous gas and growing lakes of oil.Minister of Oil Rasheed al-Amiri said Kuwait needed "whatever new technologies, whatever new ideas, whatever support" any countries could give. The task "is too big. It is going to take a long time," he said.Experts exploring the fields where Iraqis exploded more than 500 oil wells have found unexpected complications, he said.About 35 wells were damaged but not set ablaze by the blasts, and about seven of these are spewing deadly hydrogen sulfide.

TAKLIMAKAN DESERT, China -- As a windstorm gathers force and the sand begins to swirl, it's hard to imagine that much lies up ahead on the road. There is more sand and more wind -- and China is banking on there also being affordable oil.The Taklimakan is home to one of China's costliest engineering efforts, a multibillion-dollar crash project to find the oil needed by the country's booming economy.Developing the desert's resources would also go a long way toward blunting Muslim unrest in this corner of China.

Shell Oil Co. announced yesterday that it would spend $1.2 billion to bring into production a giant oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, a project intended to push offshore-recovery technology to the deepest levels yet and to create 2,200 jobs, most in Texas and Louisiana, and thousands more among subcontractors in 34 states.The announcement, made in Houston, was welcome news to the domestic oil industry, which in the past year has seen its drilling activity at the lowest level in decades amid falling prices for crude oil and a slowdown in the rate of increased demand for gasoline and other petroleum products.

KIRKUK, Iraq - The road to Kirkuk was littered with discarded Iraqi army boots. Defenses around the Iraqi-held city crumbled yesterday after assaults by Kurdish forces, a brief uprising by Kirkuk's residents and a wild flight by thousands of Iraqi soldiers, who abandoned their positions and scrambled south toward President Saddam Hussein's bastion of Tikrit. As they fled, many shed much of their military equipment, clothing and, perhaps, any remaining hope of defeating the U.S.-led Kurdish fighters here.

WASHINGTON -- As the U.S.-led air offensive intensified yesterday, Iraq delivered its most lethal Scud missile attack of the war against Israel.Three people died of heart attacks and at least 98 were injured when an Iraqi rocket eluded U.S. anti-missile defenses last night and struck a residential neighborhood in Tel Aviv, Israel's largest city, authorities said.The Israeli Cabinet was to meet today to consider a response, but there was no indication that a retaliatory strike was imminent.

WASHINGTON - U.S. forces battled remnants of Iraq's army yesterday by helping Kurdish fighters capture a key city in the country's oil-rich north and engaging in scattered gunbattles in Baghdad. Farther south, U.S. troops encountered more of the kind of violence that had been feared before the war began, as Iraqis fought Iraqis as well as the Americans. At least one Marine died and as many as 22 were injured in fighting in Baghdad, including a fierce firefight at a mosque where an informant said Saddam Hussein might be hiding.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. forces battled remnants of Iraq's army yesterday by helping Kurdish fighters capture a key city in the country's oil-rich north and engaging in scattered gunbattles in Baghdad. Farther south, U.S. troops encountered more of the kind of violence that had been feared before the war began, as Iraqis fought Iraqis as well as the Americans. At least one Marine died and as many as 22 were injured in fighting in Baghdad, including a fierce firefight at a mosque where an informant said Saddam Hussein might be hiding.

The Clinton-Lazio debate was about what you expect when Wellesley plays Vassar. Archeologist claim to have discovered an ancient flood site, but Noah got there first. One theory is you improve the schools by closing them, which is open to dispute. If Europe came to halt, so would the Gulf oil fields. Cheer up. You don't have to watch the Olympics live before dawn.