New Delhi: Blasts struck a natural gas pipeline in Iran early Wednesday, with an official claiming it to be an act of "terrorism and sabotage," reported news agency Associated Press.
An Iranian government official has blamed “terrorism and sabotage” for twin explosions on gas pipelines overnight as tensions remain high in the Middle East amid Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The explosions hit a natural gas pipeline running from Iran’s western Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province up north to cities on the Caspian Sea. The roughly 1,270-kilometer (790-mile) pipeline begins in Asaluyeh, a hub for Iran’s offshore South Pars gas field, reported AP.
“This terrorist act of sabotage occurred at 1 am (21:30 GMT) on Wednesday morning in the network of national gas transmission pipelines in two regions of the country,” oil minister Javad Owji told state TV, reported Reuters.
Owji pointed to a similar incident that took place in 2011, which he said was an act of sabotage that caused temporary gas outages in four different regions in the country.
While such attacks are rare in Iran, Arab separatist militants in Iran claimed in 2017 that they had blown up two oil pipelines in coordinated attacks in the country's western Khuzestan province, as per the Reuters report.
In December, Iran executed five people whom it accused of being saboteurs with links to Israel's Mossad intelligence service in a decades-long shadow war that has seen Tehran accuse Israel of attacks on its nuclear and missile efforts, charges the latter has never confirmed or denied.
Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog on Tuesday warned that Iran is “not entirely transparent” regarding its atomic program, particularly after an official who once led Tehran’s program announced the Islamic Republic has all the pieces for a weapon “in our hands,” reported AP.
Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program come as militias it arms in the region — Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — have launched attacks targeting Israel during the war in Gaza. The Houthis continued to attack commercial shipping in the region, sparking repeated airstrikes from the US and the UK.