At 23:00 local time on Friday, the aforementioned facility was targeted by a terrorist attack in the Harran Al-Awamid area, which led to the cessation of gas supplies to the Southern Region and the shutdown of several power plants, the Ministry of Oil and Mineral Wealth informed on a statement.

The Ministry’s authorities added that workers immediately went to the site to assess the damage and began repair operations, and the process is expected to be finished in less than 24 hours.

In turn, the Minister of Electricity Ghazan al-Zamel announced that two towers of the 400 kilovolt line were sabotaged and work is currently underway to fix them.

The explosion of the pipeline caused the suspension of the operation of the Deir Ali power plant near Damascus, which covers 50 percent of the country’s electricity needs, he explained.

Likewise, the minister detailed that the attack caused a nationwide one-hour blackout, and the electricity system was currently restored by four power plants in the center and west of the nation.

Egypt, Jordan and Syria agreed this month on a plan to bring gas and electricity to Lebanon through the Arab Gas Pipeline and Power Grid running through Lebanon.

Gas pipelines in Syria were targeted in dozens of attacks since the onset of the war in 2011, which Damascus attributes to hostile powers seeking to prevent the country from recovery.

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