ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region Natural Resources Minister Kamal Mohammed said Thursday that security forces are still working to determine the origin and nature of the latest attack on the Khor Mor gas field in the eastern Sulaimani province, reiterating calls for Washington to provide Erbil with the defense systems needed to counter drone strikes on civilian infrastructure.
“Security agencies are actively investigating the source of these attacks,” Mohammed told reporters at the ministry’s control room, noting that “only [Kurdish] security forces are currently deployed there, and they have not yet granted our teams access to enter the site.”
Asked by Rudaw when electricity could be restored, Mohammed said, “If [the damage] is confined to the fuel storage units, I expect electricity to be restored within 24 to 48 hours.”
He stressed, however, that this “timeframe applies only if the damage is limited to the [fuel] storage tanks and nothing beyond that. We still haven’t been able to determine the full extent of the damage.”
The Khor Mor gas field was hit by a drone on Wednesday night, sparking a blaze that has yet to be fully contained. The attack caused a partial blackout across the Kurdistan Region.
Earlier on Thursday, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani condemned “the cowardly attack on the Khor Mor gas field in the strongest terms,” urging Baghdad to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
In a post on X, the Kurdish Premier further urged “our American and international partners to provide the defensive equipment necessary to protect our civilian infrastructure, and to support us in taking serious action to deter these attacks on our people and our progress.”
Similarly, the KRG’s natural resources minister said that during a recent visit by US Charge d’Affaires in Baghdad Joshua Harris, they asked Washington to “provide us with systems capable of countering drones and similar attacks,” stressing “the field’s importance to both the Kurdistan Region and the all of Iraq.”
Mohammed reiterated that such a defense system “must be provided to us as soon as possible to put a stop to these acts,” warning that “the main objective [of these attacks] is to cripple the infrastructure of the Kurdistan Region.”
On a separate note, the minister said the KRG has taken urgent measures to prevent a shortage in household liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
“Following the attack, we sent a written request to the federal ministry of oil to supply us with cooking gas [LPG]. We thank them for their stance; they will resolve this for us very soon - between today and tomorrow morning - so that it does not create an impact on households,” he said.
