Explode militants in Pakistan Gas Pipeline

Explode militants in Pakistan Gas Pipeline

Rebel tribes on Thursday (13 / 1) morning to blow up gas pipeline in the southwestern province of insurgency-hit Pakistan, Baluchistan, cutting off supplies to some areas in cold weather, officials said.



The pre-dawn explosion damaged the main pipeline that carries gas from Jafarabad district to the provincial capital Quetta and five other districts, said a spokesman for the Sui Southern Gas Company Inayatullah Ismail told AFP. "The gas supply to thousands of consumers have stopped," he said. He added, that it requires two days to replace the pipe. Police and local security officials confirmed the attack, which claimed to be done by the Baluch Republican Army, a nationalist group.

Impoverished Baluchistan, bordering Iran and Afghanistan, and has been wracked by an insurgency waged by ethnic Baluch are trying to obtain greater political rights and most of the profits from natural resources in the region. "We carried out the attack," Sarbaz Baluch, a spokesman for the rebel group told local media.

"This is retaliation for the extrajudicial killings of our youth by intelligence agencies," he said. Hundreds of people have been killed in violence sweeping across the province since the insurgency flared in late 2004. This region has also been hit by attacks blamed on Taliban insurgents, despite the sabotage of gas pipelines is a trademark of nationalist insurgents.