2024-02-21T07:16:17+00:00
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/ Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji on Wednesday held Israel responsible for what he called a “conspiracy” against his country’s gas pipelines.
Reuters quoted the semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim as saying that the Iranian oil minister accused Israel of being responsible for an attack on gas pipelines last week.
The New York Times had previously reported that Israel had carried out covert attacks on two major natural gas pipelines inside Iran last week, disrupting the flow of cooking and heating gas to provinces inhabited by millions. The newspaper cited Western officials and a military strategist affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Iranian reports indicated that explosions caused by attacks occurred at around 1:00 a.m. local time last Wednesday, which led to panic among residents who fled their homes and poured into the streets.
On social media, Iranians said the explosions woke them up, believing a bomb had been dropped, while no injuries were reported.
The attacks targeted several points along two major gas pipelines in Fars and Chahar Mahal Bakhtiari provinces, but the outage extended to homes, government buildings and major factories in at least five provinces across Iran.
The targeted pipelines carry gas from the south to major cities such as Tehran and Isfahan, and one of them runs all the way to Astara, a city near the northern border with Azerbaijan.