Officials blame explosion on Iranian militant group

An explosion ripped through a pipeline belonging to Bahrain’s state-run oil company and sent flames shooting into the night sky, with government officials on Saturday blaming the blast on an attack by militants guided by Iran.

No one was injured in the explosion late Friday night near the Shiite village of Buri, and no militant group claimed the blast. But it could signal a new front in the low-level insurgency plaguing Bahrain since its 2011 Arab Spring protests.

Bahrain’s interior minister, Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, said in a statement that the blast was “the latest example of a terrorist act performed by terrorists in direct contact with, and under instruction from, Iran.”