Another ‘Explosion’ Rocks Iranian Pipelines
Another unexplained blast has hit Iranian natural gas pipelines, a recent Reuters report has revealed. In what is a suspicious and growing rate of similar incidents, the latest explosion has ripped through three major lines in the Iranian province of Qom, disrupting gas delivery from the country’s southern refineries.
Deputy oil minister, Javad Owji, who directs the government-run National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), said his office has sent special teams to the region to investigate and repair damages. But missing from Tehran’s report on the latest incident are ANY comments on what caused the blast, which has halted the supply of 250 million cubic meters of natural gas to the country’s northern provinces. The crisis comes after an almost identical February incident in the same region, which regime officials will only declare “was not the result of technical malfunction.”
Given the growing rate of these events over the last year, their documented similarities, and the Iranian regime’s continued failure to explain their causes and connections, it’s becoming increasingly possible that they are deliberate acts of sabotage.
Colin Coughlin, the Telegraph’s executive foreign editor, is convinced, and suggested last year in his article Who’s blowing up Iran’s gas pipelines?, that CIA clandestine operations aimed at destabilize the Iranian regime are a leading explanation. Though others have vaguely pinned both Kurdish rebels and the always-popular target of Mossad as additionally possible culprits, analysts have very little to work with given the considerably murky information coming out of Iran related to these events and the very high potential for disinformation on all fronts.
So, what’s your take?
Caratacus10ad Says:
Who is going to hurt the most from this kind of action,(?) and will those people which it does effect become even more discontented with their lots under the regime, and to such a degree/extent that other grievances will bubble up, expand and then go pop…
Iran is doing a lot of destabilising upon the Arabian side of the Gulf at present, could this be part of the Kingdoms response? (and possibly with a little help from her friends)
If so, then Iran is covering up her vulnerabilities…The Iranians are really in a bit of a bear pit at present, the US could well attack them for the nuclear issues, the Saudis could well retaliate by destabilising Iran from within in retaliation for Iran’s activities on the Arabian side. Saudi Arabia’s main Islamic muscle could well get aggressively shirty too with the Iranians, for having a possible nuclear capacity and politically subversively undermining the ‘true sect’ for Islams believers, by destabilising Iran from the Af-Pak area, once the Americans decide to go home from there!
Of course a refugee problem that heads further North of Iran, (if troubles would and do break) would also cause Iran’s Northern neighbour to create a potential threat towards Iran…I think Iran is in the crusher, and it needs really to ease the pressure upon its wind-pipe by some kind of rapprochement with the US…
Its clearly in Iranian interests as they have started something they ain’t going to be able to control, the net result being real big trouble for the Iranian state and its people! (maybe even a Iran under Sunni rule?)
Posted on April 10th, 2011 at 5:48 pm