A group of al-Qaida gunmen blew up a pipeline transferring liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Yemeni Marib province to the Belhaf Port Terminal for export in the southern Shabwa province on Monday, police and official of Yemen Gas Co. told Xinhua.
Yemen LNG Company said in a statement that a Yemen LNG pipeline was sabotaged in Shabwa province at 7 a.m. local time (0400GMT) on Monday.
"There were no injuries and emergency procedures have been activated to monitor and control the situation. The security along the pipeline has been reinforced with the Yemeni Government forces, " said the statement.
A provincial police officer said the explosion caused a huge fire and smoke as the pipeline was badly damaged, cutting off the LNG supply.
Al-Qaida militants used lots of bomb devices in the explosion as witnessed by some tribesmen in the area, said the official.
A staff of the Yemen Gas Co. for LNG said the company announced the emergency state and two teams of engineers were dispatched to fix the damages.
"Two teams of engineers and experts have been sent to fix the gas pipeline while works here have so far been suspended since today early morning and the emergency situation is still valid till now," the staff of the LNG company, who asked not to be named, told Xinhua.
A local security official also said experts were dispatched Monday from Yemen's capital Sanaa to Salmon area of Shabwa province to scan the area and collect the remaining materials of the bomb devices.
"Initial investigations proved that al-Qaida was behind the bombing," he said told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
"This is the first time that terrorist groups bombed a gas pipeline as they used to target only oil pipelines in Marib province," a security official of the Sanaa-based Interior Ministry told Xinhua.
The state-owned Yemen Gas Co. holds 16.73 percent interest in the country's LNG industry.
Yemen, the ancestral homeland of global al-Qaida-founder Osama bin Laden, has witnessed a series of deadly attacks by al-Qaida group across the country since late last year.