Iran: Explosion occurs at oil pipeline in southern region, no casualties recorded

On Wednesday, 17 November, an oil pipeline exploded in southern Iran, as reported by the country’s state TV citing ageing infrastructure as the reason for the blast. A local official from Khuzestan province told the state media that the accident did not lead to any casualties and noted that the fire has now been put out. As per reports, small tremors were recorded in the area after the explosion. Tasnim news agency stated that the explosion occurred because the infrastructure in place was old and out of date. 

The Wednesday explosion came after in June, a massive fire broke out at the oil refinery at Zarand Iranian Steel Company, serving the Iranian capital that sent plumes of black smoke over Tehran. A week earlier, Iran’s largest naval ship, the Kharg training support vessel ended up sinking after it was destroyed in a fire. Just last week, a massive fire was reported at an oil refinery in the southern part of the country and no casualties were reported.

Iran recorded series of such blasts, blamed Israel

In 2020, a series of mysterious blasts and explosions were reported at Iranian oil pipelines. As per the Times of Israel report, several of such explosions struck Iranian sites, which led to the speculations that they could be a part of a campaign to sabotage the country by Israel or any other Tehran foe.

The Times of Israel noted that even though Iran has repeatedly blamed Jerusalem for such attacks and cyberattacks, Tehran has also covered up similar incidents in the past and even denied that they were the results of attacks by outside forces. Just last month, Iranian gas stations were reportedly hit by widespread outages after a cyberattack impacted government-issued electronic cards that many citizens of the Islamic Republic use to buy subsidized fuel at the pump.

Later, the Iranian head of civil defence blamed Israel and the United States for the cyberattack. Gholamreza Jalali told state TV in an interview, “We are still unable to say forensically, but analytically I believe it was carried out by the Zionist regime, the Americans and their agents.”

(IMAGE: PTI/Representative)