The Iranian government has accused Israel of being behind last week’s two attacks on gas pipelines that disrupted supplies in several provinces, further raising tensions between the regional archenemies amid the war on Gaza.
Oil Minister, Javad Owji said on Wednesday after a cabinet meeting that; “The explosion of the country’s gas lines was the work of Israel.”
Africa Today News, New York reports that on February 14, two explosions hit Iran’s leading south-north gas pipeline network.
They were initially described by Owji as a “terrorist act or sabotage” without naming who was behind the attacks.
“The enemy intended to disturb gas service in the provinces and put people’s gas distribution at risk,” state news agency IRNA reported quoting Owji, who did not provide evidence to support his claim.
Israel has not acknowledged carrying out the attacks, but it rarely claims its espionage missions abroad.
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The blasts hit a natural gas pipeline from Iran’s western Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province up north to cities on the Caspian Sea. The roughly 1,270km (790-mile) pipeline begins in Asaluyeh, a hub for Iran’s offshore South Pars gas field.
There were no reported casualties from the attack. State media reported that supplies had been disrupted in the provinces of North Khorasan in the northeast, Lorestan in the west and Zanjan in the northwest.
Owji had earlier compared the attack to a series of mysterious and unclaimed assaults on gas pipelines in 2011, including an attack around the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that sometime in December of last year, a hacking group that Iran accuses of having links to Israel claimed it carried out a cyberattack which disrupted as much as 70 percent of Iran’s petrol stations.