Power cuts in Damascus, government blames “terrorists"

Opposition activists reported power outages in most neighborhoods in the Syrian capital of Damascus beginning Monday night and continuing into Tuesday. “Our electricity was cut from 11 last night until 10 this morning, and when the electricity is on it’s unreliable,” Hamza, a university student in Damascus, told Syria Direct Tuesday. The power cuts come as Syria’s Electricity Minister Ammad Khamees told a meeting of the Syrian Parliament Monday that 80 of Syria’s original 400 electricity plants had been destroyed by “a terrorist group.” Khamees added that the Electricity Ministry has recently succeeded in limiting power cuts to between two and four hours in most Syrian provinces, with the exception of Aleppo and al-Hasakah, where power lines and facilities have faced repeated attacks.