Mexico Confirms Attacks on Pipelines

The Interior Department said it would take measures to protect "strategic installations" across Mexico after an explosion Tuesday at a pipeline run by the state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, and two other blasts that rocked gas ducts on Thursday.

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MEXICO CITY – A shadowy leftist rebel group took responsibility Tuesday for a gas pipeline blast that shut down some industry in central Mexico, including two car assembly plants.

The Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR for its initials in Spanish, said Tuesday's explosion and two similar attacks on Pemex pipelines in Guanajuato state last week marked the beginning of a "national campaign of harassment against the interests of the oligarchy and this illegitimate government."

President Felipe Calderón's office issued a statement saying security was being reinforced at "strategic installations."

Officials said no one was injured in Tuesday's explosion; however, a Nissan plant in Aguascalientes and a Honda plant in Guadalajara were forced to close for lack of gas to produce electricity, local media reported.

Analysts said that if the early morning attack was indeed carried out by EPR, it would mark a shift in the group's mostly propagandistic tactics and in its ability to penetrate government security.

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