Six explosions in Mexico early this morning shut down major oil, natural gas, and propane pipelines and forced the evacuations of surrounding residents. AP reports that police say a “small, shadowy leftist group linked to similar attacks in July left a note claiming responsibility”.
Sunday night there was an explosion on a pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran to Turkey, halting the flow of gas. Russia’s state controlled natural gas monopoly Gazprom increased its exports to Turkey in response.
Pipeline attacks are quite common and extremely difficult to prevent. For more details on this threat to energy security and efforts to address it read: Pipeline sabotage is terrorist’s weapon of choice. To understand the appeal of pipelines as a terrorist target read: Terror’s next target.