Bomb blasts damage gas pipelines in Pakistan

Suspected tribal militants used bombs to blow up three state-owned gas pipelines in south-western Pakistan today, leaving thousands of domestic consumers without natural gas, but injuring no one, officials said.

No group or individual immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks near Quetta and elsewhere in the restive Baluchistan province, and officials said engineers had started the repair work to restore supplies.

Two pipelines were attacked near the town of Dashat, about 22 miles south-east of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, where the country’s main gas fields are located, said Hamid Shakil, an area police chief.

He blamed renegade tribesmen for the attack, but offered no evidence to back up his claim.

Also today, a bomb hit a pipeline in Loti, about 210 miles east of Quetta and disrupted supply to a compression plant, said Abdul Samad Lasi, a senior government official in the region.

Lasi accused the supporters of a renegade tribal elder Nawab Akbar Bugti of being behind the attack, and said security agencies had launched a hunt in an effort to trace and capture those responsible.

Baluchistan has been the scene of scores of bomb and rocket attacks, most blamed on tribal militants who want more royalty payments from the central government for resources extracted from the area.

They also oppose government plans to build new military garrisons in the province, which the government has said were needed to safeguard the gas installations and protect the staff working there.

Although the government claims it has quelled the insurgency, the continuing violence has raised fears of a repeat of an uprising that rocked Baluchistan in the 1970s, when thousands died in a large-scale military operation against rebellious tribesmen.