Four killed, 22 injured in Suez blast

Four people have been killed and 22 others injured by an explosion at an oil storage tank in the eastern Egyptian city of Suez. The blast occurred at around 6pm local time (4pm GMT) on Saturday at one of the tanks of the Nasr Petroleum Company and caused a massive blaze, the Xinhua news agency reported. Troops were mobilised to evacuate the site and help contain the fire. Dozens of fire trucks and four helicopters were still struggling to put out the fire late on Saturday. A section of an Egyptian pipeline supplying gas to the Israeli regime and Jordan was recently blown up in the fourteenth attack on the energy link since January 2011. The attack on the gas pipeline, which crosses the Sinai Peninsula, occurred on April 9 in the northern Sinai at the entrance of the Mediterranean coastal town of Al-Arish. No group or individual claimed responsibility for the attack. The gas pipeline’s operations had been suspended following the last bomb attack on February 5 and had only been resumed one week before the attack. The issue of supplying gas to Israel has always been a contentious topic for Egyptians, who view Israel as their number-one enemy and oppose engaging in any form of business with it. Egypt was forced to agree to the supply of gas to Israel as a major precondition for an annual US economic aid package, which was part of the 1979 US-sponsored "peace treaty" between the two sides. According to a $2.5-billion export deal with Tel Aviv signed in 2005, the Israeli regime receives around 40 percent of its gas supplies from Egypt at a below-market rate.