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One drone strike has knocked out most of the power in Iraqi Kurdistan. Late on Sunday night, an explosive-laden drone hit the LPG storage tank at the Khor Mor gas field — one of the largest gas fields in northern Iraq — setting off a fire that was still raging hours later and forcing production to stop. The Kurdistan region's Electricity Ministry said about 2.8 gigawatts of power generation was lost, leaving more than 70 percent of the region without electricity, according to reports from Al Jazeera.
What happened at Khor Mor
The attack came at about 11pm on Sunday, November 8, according to a joint statement from the Kurdistan Regional Government's natural resources and electricity ministries, which described it as a "terrorist attack". Two sources in the region's electricity ministry told Reuters that a single drone strike hit the LPG storage tank, and an engineer at the field said all crew were ordered into shelters for fear of further attacks. Smoke was seen rising from the field, and footage verified by Al Jazeera's fact-checking unit Sanad showed smoke and flames rising from the facility in the Sulaimaniyah governorate.
The consequences were immediate. Gas supplies were cut to power plants serving five major cities — Erbil, Sulaimaniyah, Bazian, Chamchamal and Duhok — and the region's grid lost between 2,500 and 2,800 megawatts of generating capacity. Authorities turned to hydroelectric plants at the Dokan and Darbandikhan dams and to emergency protocols to protect critical infrastructure, but the scale of the loss left most of the region in the dark. Iraq's prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, said an initial assessment found no casualties, and ordered a joint investigation with the Kurdistan authorities. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Why Khor Mor keeps getting hit
Khor Mor is not just another gas field. Operated by Pearl Petroleum — a consortium led by the UAE's Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum — it produces about 750 million cubic feet of natural gas a day, and it is the primary fuel source for most of Kurdistan's power stations. That makes it both an economic lifeline and a target. The field has been hit repeatedly by rocket and drone attacks in recent years, and its operator shut the main production facilities down in July over credible security threats and regional tensions, restarting them later the same month.
The attack also lands in the middle of a wider regional war. Whether it is linked to the United States and Israel's war on Iran is not clear, Al Jazeera reported — and no evidence has been presented either way. What is clear is the pattern: energy infrastructure has become one of the most attacked targets in the region, from Ukraine's grid to Iraq's gas fields, because a single strike can black out millions of people without a single soldier crossing a border. Until Khor Mor is repaired and defended, Kurdistan's lights depend on how fast engineers can work — and on whether the next drone is already on its way. For the wider energy standoff, see Iran's Two-Day Ultimatum to the US Explained and our earlier report on Iran's Hormuz shipping tactics.