Sabotage has not been confirmed or denied in this particular case as yet, but attacking the oil and gas supplies of the infidels is certainly part of jihad strategy as witnessed in the web posting urging attacks on the Alaska pipeline. From AP:
TBILISI, Georgia — Explosions hit natural gas pipelines running through southern Russia early Sunday, cutting the supply to Georgia and Armenia as the countries suffer a cold snap.
The blasts hit the pipelines running through the southern Russian region of North Ossetia around 3 a.m. (0000 GMT), Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov initially said the blasts appeared to be accidental, but Nikolai Shepel, chief prosecutor for Russia’s southern region, said a criminal investigation had been opened on charges of sabotage…
Russia’s NTV broadcast footage showing twisted and smoking pipelines in what appeared to be a high mountain pass.
In recent years, pipelines in Russia’s turbulent North Caucasus region have occasionally been damaged in explosions that investigators have ruled sabotage, but the blasts have not caused major supply disruptions. Criminal groups as well as militants with ties to Chechnya’s separatist rebels have been suspected.
ITAR-Tass quoted an Emergency Situations Ministry official in North Ossetia, Vladimir Ivanov, as saying that it would take two to three days to complete repairs.
The cutoff hit Georgia, which has faced extreme energy shortages for more than a decade, with a fresh crisis as it headed into a cold snap. Temperatures in Tbilisi on Sunday were minus 5 Celsius (23 F)…
Neither Georgia nor Armenia produce significant amounts of gas domestically, relying on Russia for the overwhelming majority of their gas imports.
Armenia hopes to reduce its dependence on Russia by building a pipeline to bring gas from Iran, but the first section of that project is not expected to be completed until 2007.