Explosion causes black-out in Syria

The Syrian capital Damascus was hit by a power cut late on Wednesday, shortly after an explosion near the international airport, residents said.

"The whole city just went dark," said one of the residents who lives in the centre of the city.

The Minister for Electricity, Imad Khamis said that the black-out was due to an attack on a gas pipeline feeding the electricity generating stations in the southern region.

 "A terrorist attack on a gas pipeline that feeds a power station in the south has led to a power outage in the provinces, and work to repair it is in progress," Khamis said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that reports on abuses and battlefield developments using sources from both sides of Syria's civil war, said the explosion was caused by rebel artillery that hit a gas pipeline near the airport.

The Observatory said the rebel shelling was aimed at the town of Ghasula, a few km from the airport.

Rebels have been trying to push into the capital, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for four decades.

"It is likely this was a large-scale operation planned well in advance," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

In September, a similar outage was caused after a high voltage power line was sabotaged.