Gunmen kill eight refinery workers in Iraq -police

TIKRIT, Iraq, Mar 30 (Reuters) Gunmen today ambushed and killed eight workers from Iraq's main oil refinery in the northern city of Baiji, police said.

One worker was also wounded when their minibus was stopped at a roadblock after they left work for the day. The gunmen, some of them masked and in civilian clothes, opened fire.

Baiji, 180 km north of Baghdad, supplies much of Iraq's domestic fuel needs and is the biggest refinery in the country. It and its employees have been attacked before.

It also includes a major chemicals plant where two German engineers were kidnapped two months ago. There has been no word on their fate since.

Police officers and the Joint Coordination Center for the police and US military in the regional capital Tikrit were unable to provide further details today's attack.

Fuel supplies are erratic for Iraqis, despite the country's vast untapped crude oil reserves.

Iraqi and US officials have accused Sunni Arab insurgents of involvement in organised crime, especially the smuggling of state-subsidised fuel out of Iraq, and of attacking oil facilities to restrict supplies and push up prices.

REUTERS SB RAI2035