[NYTr] Mexican Rebels Claim Pipeline Attacks

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Steven Robinson (activ-l)

AP via Google - Sep 10, 2007
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h3rxN2g3nkmPe1_gkIvWYXUL6WYQ

Mexican Rebels Claim Pipeline Attacks

By Miguel Hernandez
The Associated Press

Veracruz, Mexico  - A shadowy leftist guerrilla group took credit for a
string of explosions that ripped apart at least six Mexican oil and gas
pipelines Monday, rattling financial markets and causing hundreds of
millions of dollars in lost production.

The six explosions could be seen miles away, and set off fires that sent
flames and black smoke shooting high above the Gulf coast state of
Veracruz.

At least a dozen pipelines, most carrying natural gas, were affected,
said Jesus Reyes Heroles, the head of Mexico's oil monopoly Petroleos
Mexicanos, without providing specifics. The explosions occurred in
valve stations where different pipelines intersect.

He said there would be hundreds of millions of dollars in lost
production and about nine states and the capital, Mexico City, would be
affected.

"It is a big blow," he said. "You can't store natural gas or transport
it by truck."

The blasts caused brief jitters in international markets, with natural
gas futures up as much as 20.2 cents on news of the explosions,
although prices dropped in later trading. One oil pipeline was hit in
Monday's attack but Pemex said the damage wouldn't affect crude exports.

Some local factories were forced to shut after natural gas supplies were
cut. Residential supplies were not expected to be affected.

There were no immediate reports of injuries directly caused by the
explosions and fires, although Fernando Leon Yepez, a civil defense
official in Omealca, reported that two elderly women died of heart
attacks shortly after the explosions.

It was the second time in three months that the so-called People's
Revolutionary Army claimed responsibility for a pipeline attack as part
of what it has labeled its "prolonged people's war" against "the
anti-people government."

The group, known as the EPR, is a secretive, tiny rebel group that
staged several armed attacks on government and police installations in
southern Mexico in the 1990s. It was later weakened by internal
divisions, leaving it unclear which splinter group may have carried out
Monday's attacks.

The EPR claimed responsibility for a July attack on a major gas pipeline
from Mexico City to Guadalajara in western Mexico that forced at least a
dozen major companies, including Honda Motor Co., Kellogg Co. and The
Hershey Co., to suspend or scale back operations.

That attack sent the Mexican government scrambling to increase security
at "strategic installations" across Mexico. It was not clear what
security measures were in place at the pipelines that exploded Monday.

The government did not immediately confirm the EPR's claim of
responsibility. Interior Secretary Francisco Ramirez said the federal
Attorney General's Office was trying to determine who was responsible.

"Pemex's fundamental installations are adequately protected by our armed
forces, and we will do our utmost to find those responsible," Ramirez
said.

At least 21,000 people were evacuated as a precaution. Some of them were
later allowed to return home.

Flames could be seen up to six miles away, said Pedro Jimenez, a
resident who was packing his family into a truck to leave. "You could
see the fields of crops lit up."

At least one undetonated explosive device was later found beside a
pipeline in a swampy area about 500 yards from a highway toll booth
just north of the port of Veracruz, state civil defense coordinator
Ismael Reyes said.

President Felipe Calderon condemned the attacks in a statement from
India, where he was on a state visit.

"I want to say that my government severely condemns this and all other
acts of violence and those who promote it in our country and anywhere
in the world," he said. "There is no room for such criminal acts in a
democratic Mexico."

Mexico is a major oil producer and exporter, with oil and related taxes
accounting for over a third of the federal government's revenue. The
U.S. imported 12.7 million cubic feet of natural gas from Mexico in
2006, only about 0.3 percent of total imports that year.