BREAKING: 11/29/20 Drone Attack Plunges Northern Iraq Into Darkness: Here’s What Happened
Late Wednesday night, a drone attack struck a major natural-gas facility in northern Iraq — and the consequences were immediate and dramatic. The strike hit Kormor gas field in the Kurdish region, cutting off gas supplies used to power electricity plants. (AP News)
Because of that, large parts of northern Iraq — including the provinces around Erbil and Sulaymaniyah — plunged into darkness. The shutdown left both cities without power and added strain to a system already under pressure.
Officials say the explosion happened around 11:30 p.m. When one of the field’s main facilities was hit and caught fire, it forced a “complete halt” to gas flowing into electricity plants. Fortunately, there were no reported casualties — but the material damage and disruption were serious.
The strike was described by the country’s military leadership — the Joint Operations Command — as a “cowardly” act of terrorism, meant to undermine Iraq’s economy and shake the region’s stability. (AP News)
Authorities are scrambling to figure out who is behind the attack. Meanwhile, the governments of both Iraq and the autonomous Kurdish region vowed to bring those responsible to justice and tighten security around key energy infrastructure.
The blackout comes at a difficult time — generator-owners were already boycotting in protest of new electricity-supply policies. With gas cut off, even backup electricity sources are compromised, deepening the outage’s impact.
In short: a single drone strike has rippled into a full-blown energy crisis. Power plants shut down, entire cities lost electricity, and the authorities are calling it a major threat to Iraqi security and economic well-being. (AP News)
