For some reason this is not getting a lot of press. But this story pretty much tells it all….

A SHADOWY leftist rebel group claimed responsibility for six explosions that damaged several Mexican gas and oil pipelines today, sending flames towering into the sky and forcing the evacuation of thousands.

Financial markets in the US and Mexico were rattled by the blasts, which officials said cost hundreds of millions of dollars in lost production. Some local factories were forced to shut after natural gas supplies were cut but there were no immediate reports of injuries directly caused by the explosions and fires.

It was the second time in three months that the so-called People’s Revolutionary Army has claimed to have targeted pipelines as part of what it has labelled its “prolonged people’s war” against “the anti-people government.”

The group, known as the EPR, is an extremely secretive, tiny rebel group that staged several armed attacks on government and police installations in southern Mexico in the 1990s. It was later weakened by internal divisions, leaving it unclear which splinter group carried out the attacks.

The six explosions, which affected several natural gas pipelines and one oil pipeline in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, triggered fires that shot flames and plumes of black smoke high into the sky and could be felt kilometres away.

The rest of the story talks about the likely political and economic effects.