A Mexican guerrilla group has claimed responsibility for a series of bombings of oil and gas pipelines operated by Pemex, the country’s national oil company.
Explosions sent flames nearly 1,000 feet into the air outside the city of Corregidora, in the central state of Queretaro, where several pipelines were severed, including a 36-inch pipe that transported natural gas to local distributors and a 16-inch line that supplied a local refinery with crude oil.
The Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, said in a communique that it would continue its bombing campaign until the government disclosed the whereabouts of two of its members said to have disappeared last year in the southern state of Oaxaca. The rebels said they set off a total of eight explosives charges on three pipelines and at a cutoff valve at locations in the central state of Guanajuato and adjacent Queretaro.
A spokesman for President Felipe Calderon said the government would “punish those responsible” for the attacks.