Illustrative image (The Mehr News Agency)
At least two people were injured in an incident during a maintenance operation at the Aftab oil refinery in the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas, Iranian state media reported on March 7, citing the operating company.
A fire was reported at the oil refinery shortly before noon local time, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. Initially, the state-run news agency said that several people had been killed and injured due to an accident there, but cautioned there had been no official statement.
Several state-run agencies later described what happened as a “partial incident that happened during a maintenance operation”, without giving details of what that entailed, and said there were at least two injured, with no mention of any dead.
The Aftab is one of the largest oil refineries in Iran. It produces more than 20,000 barrels of oil products per day, mainly for export.
Industrial accidents are not uncommon in Iran’s oil facilities. Last December, two oil refineries caught fire in the space of a week.
Nevertheless, the possibility of sabotage can’t be ruled out as such attacks have targeted civilian infrastructure in Iran in the past.
Israeli intelligence was behind a series of blasts that targeted a key gas pipeline in the southwestern Iranian province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari as well as a chemical factory on the outskirts of the capital, Tehran, in February, according to recent reports.
Iran and Israel have been engaged in a decades-long shadow war across the Middle East and beyond. Tensions between the two escalated after the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip last October. Since then, Israel has assassinated a number of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers in Syria and Iran attacked several Israel-affiliated ships in the Indian Ocean.
“it vill be a much aangrier vorld.”
iran will stay strong…
religion of peace went harlot mode
peophiliac? do us some more mumbling batcha bazillion from longdong.