SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2002
Rockets fired at Pakistan gas pipeline
AFP
MULTAN: Assailants fired three rockets at Pakistan's largest gas pipeline network but the explosions failed to hit their target, officials said on Friday.
The rockets were fired before dawn on Wednesday from mountains overlooking the pipeline near Dera Bugti in Baluchistan province, 650 kilometres southwest of the capital Islamabad.
"The pipeline remained safe and no damage occurred," an official from Sui Northern Gas Pipelines said.
"There would have been a catastrophe had the rockets hit the main supply line."
The identify of the assailants, who fled after the attack, and the type of rockets used were not clear.
The 5,215-kilometre Sui pipeline network is a major supplier of domestic gas. Its flow could have been interrupted "for an indefinite period" if the rockets hit their target, the official, who asked not to be named, said.
Sources said local tribal groups have been known to attack the pipeline and gas fields in efforts to blackmail authorities into paying protection money.
The attack came three weeks before Pakistan is expected to launch a major international pipeline project with regional neighbours Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is reportedly due to join his Turkmen and Afghan counterparts Saparmurat Niyazov and Hamid Karzai for a three-way summit in Ashkhabad on December 26-27.
The project to build the 1,500-kilometre, two billion-dollar gas link from Turkmenistan's Dauletabad fields across war-torn Afghanistan to Pakistan has been on the table for 20 years.
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