Israel behind gas pipeline explosions inside Iran: Report
Israel reportedly carried out attacks on two major natural gas pipelines inside Iran this week, disrupting the flow of gas to several provinces with millions of people.
Citing two Western officials, The New York Times reported on Friday that Israel also caused a separate blast on Thursday inside a chemical factory on the outskirts of Tehran that rattled a neighborhood and sent plumes of smoke and fire into the air.
But local officials said the factory explosion stemmed from an accident in the factory’s fuel tank.
“The enemy’s plan was to completely disrupt the flow of gas in winter to several main cities and provinces in our country,” Iran’s Oil Minister, Javad Owji, told Iranian media on Friday.
Owji, who had previously referred to the blasts as “sabotage and terrorist attacks,” said that the goal of the attack was to damage Iran’s energy infrastructure and stir domestic discontent.
National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) manager Saeed Aghli said, “This act of terrorism and sabotage was carried out in two locations at around 1 a.m.”
The saboteurs hit pipelines in the cities of Borujen in the southwestern province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and Safashahr in the southern province of Fars, Aghli said.
It disrupted gas supplies in at least three provinces – North Khorasan in the northeast, Lorestan in the west, and Zanjan in the northwest.
One Western official called it a major symbolic strike that was fairly easy for Iran to repair and caused relatively little harm to civilians, according to The New York Times.
Israel has long targeted military and nuclear sites inside Iran, and assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists and commanders, both inside and outside of the country. Israel has also waged cyberattacks to disable servers belonging to the Oil Ministry, causing turmoil at gas stations nationwide.
But blowing up part of the country’s energy infrastructure, relied on by industries, factories and millions of civilians, marked an escalation in the covert war and appeared to open a new frontier.