Syria’s gas pipeline explosion caused by terrorist attack, minister says

The gas pipeline explosion reported earlier on Monday in the Syrian province of Damascus that has led to power outages in the entire country has been caused by a terrorist attack, Syrian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Ghanem informed.

"After an assessment of the situation, it was determined that the explosion that took place on the gas pipeline between Adra and Al-Dumayr had been caused by a terrorist attack," Syrian TV channel Al-Ikhbariya quotes the minister as saying.

The minister added that in the next few hours, the power supply in Syria can be restored.

Earlier, SANA news agency informed, citing Ghanem, that the entire territory of Syria had been left without power due to a gas pipeline explosion that took place on Monday in the southern part of the country.

Syrian Electricity Minister Muhammad Zuhair Kharboutli informed later that specialists had managed to relaunch some of the power stations that went out after the incident, providing power supply to crucial facilities and beginning a gradual recovery of power supply to some of the country’s provinces.