Blasts on gas pipeline send a message
By Andrew E. Kramer
The New York Times
TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2006

MOSCOW Saboteurs who bombed two natural gas pipelines high in the Caucasus Mountains this week - by one estimate sending a fireball nearly 200 meters into the sky - paralyzed Georgia and sent a message straight to Western Europe, which depends on Russian natural gas.

The Russian authorities are calling the strike a terrorist attack on a gas main, suggesting that groups in or near the rebellious republic of Chechnya may be targeting the country's energy infrastructure.

That would be bad news for Western Europe, which depends on Russia for one quarter of its natural gas.

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