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Gas leak early Wednesday morning near Borujen, south of Isfahan
Photo: Reza Kamali Dehkordi / AP
Explosions destroyed gas pipelines in Iran early Wednesday morning. Now the New York Times reports that it could be Israeli acts of sabotage. The newspaper cites two Western government officials and a military strategist connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). Israel's government declined to comment.
The incidents occurred in the interior and south of the country, state media reported. According to authorities, there was evidence of sabotage as the cause of one of the explosions in the southern province of Fars. The Iranian head of the Center for the National Gas Network, Said Aghli, described the incidents on state television as a terrorist attack. However, there were initially no further details about the background.
Western government officials and military strategists told the New York Times that the attacks required extensive knowledge of Iran's infrastructure. According to one of the government representatives, it was a "symbolic attack" that caused relatively little damage to the civilian population - but could be understood as a clear warning from Israel given the tense situation in the region.
The USA and Israel in particular accuse Tehran of having supported the Islamist Hamas for years and of being at least indirectly responsible for the terrorist attack on October 7th, in which more than 1,200 people were murdered in Israel. Since the beginning of the Gaza War, Israel has also attacked a number of targets of pro-Iranian groups in Syria and Lebanon in an attempt to push back Iranian influence in the region.
mgo/dpa