Fresh attack on Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel

A section of pipeline in the North Sinai that supplies Israel and Jordan with gas has been blown up, the latest in a series of attacks in the area.

Sources in North Sinai said that a group of six armed men cut through the barbed wire around the gas terminal near the town of al-Arish and entered from the back.

They then placed an explosive device where the bombing took place moments later. They got back into the car that was waiting for them and fled the scene.
The secretary general of the North Sinai governorate said at least two people were injured from the explosion which also damaged nearby crops and farmland.
A local hospital said one man was admitted with burns from the blast.
Fire brigades were bringing the flames under control after the company operating the pipeline cut off the gas supply.

Since Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president, was ousted in February, the pipeline has been repeatedly blown up by people believed to be opposed to selling Egyptian gas to Israel.

The last attack took place in July, when men armed with machine guns forced guards at a station to abandon their posts, and then blew it up.

Egypt has been trying to charge Israel and Jordan more for its gas after complaining that prices fixed during Mubarak's rule were below market rates.

The pipeline is run by Gasco, Egypt's gas transport company which is a subsidiary of the national gas company EGAS.

The Egyptian armed forces launched a security operation in Sinai in August to root out hundreds of suspected fighterss believed to be behind some of the attacks on the pipeline and police compounds in the peninsula.