Officials Suggest New Fire at Iran-Afghanistan Border May Be Intentional
Local authorities in Farah Province near the Iran-Afghanistan border reported on Saturday, March 7, that four fuel tanks caught fire.
Taj Mohammad Jahi, the governor of the province, told Afghanistan’s Hasht-e Subh newspaper that the four tanks, located at the “Abu Nasrullah” customs checkpoint, contained “oil products and gas.”
Local officials say the fire was intense and firefighting operations were conducted with the help of six fire trucks sent by Iran.
Rohullah Latifi, a spokesman for Iran’s customs authority, confirmed the fire and stated that each of these tanks has a capacity of 120,000 liters of fuel.
This is the second major fire at the border between Iran and Afghanistan in less than a month.
According to Iran’s customs spokesman, the fire started at 11 a.m., and “in the initial minutes, trucks in Iran’s Mahiroud customs yard were quickly evacuated and directed toward more distant areas, and simultaneously, as the border gates opened, trucks stationed in Afghanistan were also directed toward the Iran border.”
The IRNA news agency quoted Ghulam Sakhi Ghafouri, commander of Farah Province’s police in Afghanistan, as saying that “the incident occurred when a driver was pouring gasoline into his vehicle and the fire gradually spread to a tanker truck that was nearby.”
Meanwhile, Hamidrreza Salehi, head of the Energy Commission of the Chamber of Commerce, suggested to ILNA news agency that the incident may have been intentional, saying: “It appears these incidents are happening to disrupt the formal export process so that informal exports can thrive.”
According to Salehi, these tanks were storage facilities for legally exported fuel, and all cargo and tankers belonged to the private sector.
Following a similar fire on February 14 at Islam Qala customs checkpoint on the Iran-Afghanistan border, at least 60 people were injured and Iranian authorities announced that 40 transit trucks were destroyed. Afghanistan’s Chamber of Commerce estimated the damage from that fire at “hundreds of millions of dollars” and said a thousand vehicles belonging to Afghan citizens and merchants were burned.
Source: Radio Farda
