Blackout hits central, southern Iraq, sources say

BAGHDAD (AFP): Iraq was hit by a power outage in its central and southern regions on Monday after a shutdown at a power plant in the western province of Anbar, electricity ministry sources said.

The sudden shutdown of the Hamidiya plant led to a fault in the electricity transmission network, the sources said.

The chair of Iraq’s parliament energy committee told Reuters the outage did not affect the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

A member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and one of the world’s leading oil producers, Iraq has struggled to provide its citizens with energy since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

In March, US President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded a waiver that had allowed Iraq to pay Iran for electricity, as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

Iraq is heavily dependent on Iranian natural gas imports to generate power.