Damascus in 4th energy blackout of 2013

A power outage in Damascus has plunged the Syrian capital into darkness. The outage, lasting more than 17 hours, is the fourth power disruption to hit the city since the beginning of 2013. A source in the Ministry of Electricity, who declined to be named for security reasons, told Arabstoday that “Damascus does not rely on one major source for power. Outages in all areas confirm that the problem is not technical, but instead intended by the Syrian government.” A member of the general authority for the Syrian revolution also told Arabstoday that “the electricity was cut intentionally by the government to punish Syrians for supporting the revolution, and to transfer weapons inside the capital and countryside without alerting the opposition free army.” The minister of electricity issued a statement blaming a technical failure and gave assurances that the problem would be solved within 24 hours. According to official news agency, SANA, power supply has returned to some of the southern areas of Damascus, and work is continuing to restore power. Electricity production in Syria has declined by nearly half since the start of the revolution two years ago. Mainly because of the lack of fuel needed for production plants due to the deteriorating security situation. The Ministry of Electricity stated that the economic loss resulting from power outages last month is an estimated 22 billion US dollars.