Iraq to probe gas complex attack that hit power supply

Iraq said on Thursday it would investigate an attack on a gas complex in the autonomous Kurdistan region, which disrupted gas supplies and caused power cuts.

Sabah Al-Numan, the military spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, said in a statement that the caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani had ordered “the formation of a high-level investigative committee” to look into the attack.

Al-Numan said “terrorist groups are attempting to undermine the country’s stability.”

The Khor Mor complex, which supplies most of Kurdistan’s power stations and is owned by Dana Gas, has been hit several times in recent years.

Late on Wednesday, regional authorities in northern Kurdistan said that a drone attacked the facility, cutting off all gas supplies to the region’s power stations.

Dana Gas said that a rocket attack struck a storage tank at the Khor Mor facility, causing a shutdown in production, but did not cause any casualties.

AFP correspondents in Kurdistan reported power cuts across the region, including in the city of Sulaimaniyah.

Iraq has only recently regained a sense of normality after decades of war and turmoil, though it still frequently suffers such attacks.

Kurdish authorities, who have strong ties to the US, have previously accused armed groups of conducting drone and rocket strikes within their region.

Regional Prime Minister Masrour Barzani urged the US on Thursday to provide the region with defensive equipment.

The regional electricity authority said the attack had disrupted 80 percent of Kurdistan’s power grid.

If the damage is limited to one storage tank, electricity may be restored within 48 hours, the authorities said.

Prime Minister Al-Sudani spoke by phone to Barzani and condemned the attack as “an attack on all of Iraq.”

Mark Savaya, the US special envoy to Iraq, condemned the attack, which he said had been carried out by “armed groups operating illegally and driven by hostile foreign agendas.”

“There is no place for such armed groups in a fully sovereign Iraq,” he posted on X.

Washington has long pressured Iraq to disarm militant groups and to free itself from foreign interference.

The liquid storage tank is part of new facilities partially financed by the US and built by a US contractor, an industry source said.

The new facilities were installed as part of the KM250 project, which has boosted the field’s production capacity by 50 percent, Dana Gas and its affiliate Crescent Petroleum said in October.

“How many attacks must happen before the US government simply allows the Kurdistan Regional Government to purchase kinetic anti-drone equipment for us to defend our skies and critical infrastructure?” Aziz Ahmad, Barzani’s deputy chief of staff, said in a post on X after the attack.