Pirates attacked a supertanker anchored close to the Basra oil terminal in Iraq early yesterday morning, a shipping company announced today.

Christer Martensson, the Basra port manager for Gulf Agency Company (GAC) told Times Online the attack occurred between 3 and 3.30 am on Wednesday morning.

Three men armed men were spotted aboard the tanker, but escaped when the alarm was raised. There were no casualties.

"It was one of the night watchmen that saw them," said Mr Martensson, "He saw three men armed with an assault weapon and knives. He also saw a rifle. He managed to alert the bridge and the duty officer. When that happened, the pirates fled the vessel, into a small speedboat I think."

The attempted raid is the latest in a series of attacks on the deep water oil terminal, which exports most of Iraq's crude oil.

Yesterday's boarding comes just two weeks after pirates armed with AK-47 rifles attacked the crew of the Nord Millenium, a supertanker that was waiting to load oil.

Last year the terminal was targetted by a suicide boat attacks apparently launched by al-Qaeda.

Mr Martensson said that coalition troops have been providing increased security around the terminal and that GAC would continue to serve the port.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Wednesday, six US soldiers died in around the troubled city of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad. A roadside bomb killed five marines outside Ramadi and a sailor was killed by gunfire inside the town as Shia politicians stepped up their efforts to bring the Sunni region into the political process.

The casualties, announced this morning, brought Wednesday's death toll to 57, making it the bloodiest day of the last month in Iraq.

In the most significant attack, twenty-six new Iraqi soldiers were killed after a suicide bomber wearing a military uniform blew himself up in a mess tent at an army base in Khalis, about 45 miles north of Baghdad. The dead men had been queueing for lunch.

Also yesterday, the Iraqi Special Tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity over the coming months released a second videotape.

The latest tape, which has no sound, shows a judge questioning three senior members of Hussein's former government, including the dictator's half brother Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who was handed over by Syrian authorities in February.

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