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Iraqi army thwarts attempt to blow up power transmission tower in Diyala, 44 transmission lines targetted past few days
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

The cell said in a statement that the Fifth Division of the Iraqi army managed to thwart an attempt to detonate a power transmission tower in al-Safra area with TNT.

A widespread power outage hit Iraq on Friday as temperatures reached scorching levels, affecting millions of Iraqis, including those in affluent areas in the capital of Baghdad, and stirring concerns of widespread unrest.

Iraq's grid was generating just over 4,000 megawatts, according to Ministry of Electricity data on Friday morning — significantly less than the 12,000-17,000 megawatts the grid generates on average. By midday, production had climbed to 8,000 MW.

The cuts have impacted Baghdad and the southern governorates in particular.

In the oil-rich southern city of Basra, which in the past has seen violent mostly peaceful protests over chronic electricity cuts and poor public services, a group of protesters burned tires to block roads during a demonstration demanding the return of electricity.

The Electricity Ministry said power transmission lines have been routinely sabotaged by unknown groups in northern Iraq in recent weeks. One 400 kilovolt line from Kirkuk to Qayara was targeted Thursday, the ministry said in a statement.

Another 132 kV line was hit in Salahhadin on the same day.

Local TV channels initially reported that the outage on Friday was due to the cutting of a major 400 kV line between Baghdad and the southern Governorate of Babel. The ministry has not confirmed the incident.

Total shutdowns can also occur when Iraq's electricity network is working at maximum capacity. Defects in the transmission network and distribution capacity also contribute to outages. High temperatures can also impact the distribution lines.

44 electricity lines targeted by terrorists in past few days

[Rudaw] At least 44 electricity pylons have been targets of terrorist attacks over the past few days, the spokesperson to Iraq’s Joint Operation Command told state media, adding that most of them have been repaired.

"There are around 44 to 45 transmission lines that have been targeted by forces of Evil in the past few days," Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji told state media on Sunday. "Most of the targeted power lines have been repaired."

Several attacks on electricity lines have been reported in the past few months, mostly in the disputed territories where ISIS has exploited a security vacuum.

One terrorist was killed by security forces in Diyala province as he was trying to blow up electricity pylons on Wednesday.

Earlier in June, the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity said that a major power line in Kirkuk governorate was out of service after an act of "sabotage" with an bomb, detonating two nearby electricity pylons.

"The Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 (ISIS) terrorist organization seeks to create panic through targeting these power lines," Khafaji said, adding that a joint operations cell between the security forces and the electricity ministry has been formed to set up strategies on how to protect those power lines, along with a joint force between the army, police, and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF or Hashd al-Shaabi) formed to protect those towers.

In a statement released on Monday, the Ministry of Electricity announced that the transmission lines that supply power to the al-Karkh water project were targeted, indicating that ISIS attempted to cut off water supplies to nearby populations.

Earlier in June, a spokesperson from Iraq’s electricity ministry told Rudaw English that bombs have disrupted electricity lines in djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
 and Diyala, affecting areas across the country, including the capital Baghdad.

The power outages caused by such attacks have exacerbated problems for civilians who are already dealing with soaring temperatures in a year of drought and water shortages

Iraq has long suffered from chronic outages and electricity shortages in a country where summer temperatures reach over 50 degrees Celsius. Such shortages have in past years been a rallying call for protesters, most notably in the summer of 2018.
Posted by: Fred 2021-07-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=606449