Blast on Iran pipeline cuts gas flow to Turkey

Two people were killed and 16 others injured by an explosion at a gas pipeline near Iran's northeastern city of Mashhad on Friday, local media reported.Mehr news agency, without quoting a source, reported that two workers were killed in the explosion.The website of state television said the explosion took place in the Mazdavand region near Mashhad when a mechanical shovel struck the pipeline.It quoted Alireza Gharibi, head of Iran's Gas Engineering and Development Company, as saying that the blast also left 16 others injured.

A bomb explosion outside a prison in Iran on Saturday wounded 19 people and allowed two prisoners to escape, Mehr news agency cited a local police official as saying.The blast was in front of the facility in Ilam in western Iran, the city's deputy police chief Colonel Aziz Abdi told the agency."Nineteen people have been wounded, including three prison guards," he said, adding that three prisoners tried to escape "but one of them has been recaptured and two are still at large."

Less than a week ago gas began to flow again through a Turkish pipeline carrying Iranian natural gas following an attack that had disrupted supplies. Now Turkish officials are once again reporting that saboteurs have bombed the pipe, halting the flow of natural gas and injuring 28 soldiers.The Turkish pipeline operator Botas has already asked to Gazprom to send more gas to cover for the loss of gas coming from Iran.

Talk of bombing Iran surfaced in the news late last week when Israel's departing defense minister, Ehud Barak, said his country had written off plans to attack Tehran on its own in the face of a "surgical" plan put forth by the Pentagon.

Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Javad Owji told reporters in Tehran, "Seven international investors have announced their readiness to finance, design, and construct the pipeline that will transport 110 million cubic meters of Iranian natural gas to Iraq, Syria, and European countries per day."Owji added that talks are underway to begin construction of the multi-billion-dollar project by March 2012, Mehr News Agency reported.

AFP - The death toll from a gas pipeline explosion near Iran's northeastern h

The death toll from a gas pipeline explosion near Iran's northeastern holy city of Mashhad on Friday has risen to six, with another 20 people hurt, the ISNA news agency reported on Saturday."The gas pipeline explosion has left six people dead and 20 injured," Gholam Reza Masoumi, head of Iran's emergency services, told ISNA.He said the explosion occurred when a mechanical shovel struck the pipeline that carries gas from Sarakhs refinery to Mashhad, the website said.