Saboteurs blow up Yemen gas pipeline

Saboteurs have blown up a pipeline linking gas fields in eastern Yemen to a maritime terminal in the country's mostly lawless south, Yemen LNG company said on Wednesday. The blast occurred at 10:00 pm on Tuesday, almost 300 kilometres (more than 185 miles) north of the Balhaf terminal, the company said in a statement on its website, without reporting any casualties or the extent of the damage. A Yemeni official who requested anonymity told AFP that the assailants had placed an explosive device on the pipeline 30 kilometres south of the Safer gas fields in the eastern province of Marib. Similar explosions struck gas pipelines that also feed the Balhaf terminal in September, August, May and March, the latter forcing the suspension of gas exports for three weeks. Gas and oil pipelines have been a regular target for sabotage attacks in the impoverished southern Arabian Peninsula nation, which relies on its modest exports as a main source of revenue. The attacks, blamed on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, have become more frequent in the wake of the 2011 popular uprising that forced out veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh.