Blast Hits Gas Pipeline in Northeast Syria

An explosion hit a gas pipeline in northeastern Syria late Tuesday in the first attack on the country's energy infrastructure since protests erupted in March, a human rights activist said.

"The explosion hit the gas pipeline last night at 11 pm (20:00 GMT) in al-Tayyaneh northeast of the town of Mayadin," the director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told Agence France Presse in Nicosia.

State-owned al-Ikhbariya television said it was an oil pipeline in Deir al-Zour province that was hit and that the blast had caused no casualties and "limited damage".