- Semi-official Tasnim news agency says the incident is due to outdated infrastructure
An explosion was reported at an Iranian oil pipeline in the south of the country, according to media reports.
According to Reuters, citing the semi-official Tasnim news agency, the explosion occurred because the infrastructure in place is old and out of date.
Tasnim said that the explosion “created small tremors” that could be felt in the surrounding areas.
In June, a massive fire broke out at the oil refinery serving Iran’s capital, sending thick plumes of black smoke over Tehran. Last year, a series of mysterious blasts and explosions were reported at Iranian oil pipelines.
Several of the explosions struck sensitive Iranian sites, leading to speculation that they could be part of a sabotage campaign engineered by Israel or another Tehran foe.
While Iran has regularly accused Israel of attacks and cyberattacks on its infrastructure, Tehran in the past has also covered up such incidents and denied that they were the results of attacks by outside forces.
Last month, Iranian gas stations were hit by widespread outages after a cyberattack rendered useless the government-issued electronic cards that many Iranians use to buy subsidized fuel at the pump.
Iran’s head of civil defense later blamed Israel and the United States for the cyberattack. “We are still unable to say forensically, but analytically I believe it was carried out by the Zionist regime, the Americans and their agents,” Gholamreza Jalali told state TV in an interview, according to Reuters.
Also early Wednesday morning, Syrian state media reported that the IDF fired missiles at a target near the Syrian capital Damascus.
Israeli forces in the Golan Heights fired two surface-to-surface missiles at an empty warehouse south of the city at around 12:45 a.m., according to Syrian state media outlet SANA.
The report said there were no casualties and claimed Syrian defenses downed one of the Israeli missiles. There was no comment from the IDF, in line with its policy of ambiguity regarding its specific activities in Syria.
First published in Times of Israel, https://www.timesofisrael.com/explosion-reported-at-oil-pipeline-in-southern-iran-creating-tremors/?utm_source=Push&utm_medium=Firefox&utm_content=Breaking_News&utm_campaign=desktop-notifications