WarSclerotic

‘Egypt-Israel gas pipeline attacked by armed gang’.

  Saboteurs on Wednesday blew up a pipeline running through Egypt’s North Sinai near the town of El-Arish that supplies gas to Israel and Jordan, a security source told Reuters.

“An unknown armed gang attacked the gas pipeline,” the security source said, adding that the flow of gas to Israel and Jordan had been hit.

“Authorities closed the main source of gas supplying the pipeline and are working to extinguish the fire,” the source said, adding there was a tower of flame at the scene.

Last month, six gunmen in Sinai targeted the pipeline, overpowering a guard and planting an explosive device before fleeing.

The explosive device failed to detonate and was eventually defused by soldiers at the gas terminal in the village of el-Sabil near el-Arish.

In March, the Egyptian army deployed hundreds of additional soldiers to the northern Sinai Peninsula to guard the pipeline.

An Israeli defense official said Jerusalem had agreed to the deployment, which followed a February 5 explosion at a gas terminal in the area that disrupted the flow of gas to Israel and Jordan. Security officials said a bomb had caused the blast at the el- Arish terminal, while Egypt’s natural gas company said it had been caused by a gas leak.

The blast and fire at the gas terminal in el-Arish did not cause casualties.

The explosion sent a pillar of flames leaping into the sky, but was a safe distance from the nearest homes, said regional governor Abdel Wahab Mabrouk. He added the fire was brought under control by mid-morning, after valves controlling the flow of gas were closed.

The flow of natural gas from Egypt to Israel and Jordan was cut off until March 16 as a result of the blast. Israel gets 40 percent of its natural gas from Egypt, a deal built on their landmark 1979 peace accord.

On Saturday, Egypt’s public prosecutor ordered former Energy Minister Sameh Fahmy and six other officials to stand trial on charges of squandering public funds related to the natural gas deal with Israel.

The decision, part of a probe on graft during the 30-year-rule of Mubarak, said the deal in question caused Egypt losses worth more than $714 million and enabled a local businessman to make financial profits.

This entry was posted on April 27, 2011 at 7:51 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.