Gas pipeline terror attack in Mexico forces factories to shut down*

    * Story Highlights
    * Left-wing guerrilla group claims responsibility for attack on
natural gas pipeline
    * Honda Motor Co., Kellogg Co.'s, The Hershey Co., Nissan Motor Co.
affected
    * Explosion forced the evacuation of communities around Coroneo, Mexico

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Honda, Hershey's and other multinational
companies temporarily shut down their factories in western Mexico on
Wednesday after rebels attacked a key natural gas pipeline.

Mexican army soldiers stand near the site of an explosion at a gas
pipeline near Queretaro, Mexico, early Tuesday.

The small, left-wing guerrilla group that claimed responsibility for the
explosions issued a statement late Tuesday vowing to continue the
attacks, while the Mexican government scrambled to increase security at
"strategic installations" across Mexico.

At least a dozen companies including Honda Motor Co., Kellogg Co.'s, The
Hershey Co., Nissan Motor Co., and Grupo Modelo SA were forced to
suspend or scale back operations because of the lack of natural gas, the
daily newspaper Excelsior reported. They said they faced millions of
dollars in losses.

Vitro SAB, a Mexican company that makes glass containers, said the
shutdown of two plants would cost it about $800,000 a day. Vitro said in
a statement that it was increasing production at other plants in Mexico
to minimize effects on customers.

Total business losses were being estimated at more than 70 million pesos
($6.4 million) a day, Excelsior reported, citing unidentified sources.
The association representing Mexican industry said Wednesday it was
looking into the extent of the explosions' financial impact.

Officials from Mexico's state-owned oil and gas monopoly Petroleos
Mexicanos, or Pemex, said an explosion Tuesday and two more last week
affected different sections of the same pipeline. The company sent 150
workers to repair the line.

The disruption affected clients in the industry-rich city of
Guadalajara, capital of the western state of Jalisco; the industrial
city of Leon, in the central state of Guanajuato; and the central states
of Queretaro and Aguascalientes.

Pemex said the gas would probably not be restored until Friday at the
earliest, but was working to provide alternate means of delivery.

Tuesday's explosion caused no injuries but forced the evacuation of
communities around the town of Coroneo, near Queretaro's capital, Pemex
said. On July 5, two explosions on the same pipeline in Guanajuato also
forced evacuations but caused no injuries.

The group that claimed responsibility for the explosions is the
"military zone command of the People's Revolutionary Army," or EPR, a
tiny rebel group that staged several armed attacks on government and
police installations in southern Mexico in the 1990s, but was later
weakened by internal divisions.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, the EPR said it was waging a
"prolonged people's war."

"We have started a national campaign of harassment against the economic
interests of the oligarchy and the anti-people government, and declare
those interests as legitimate military targets," it said.

It was impossible to independently verify the statement, which was
posted on a Web site that serves as a clearinghouse for bulletins from
Latin American armed groups.

The group said it would continue its attacks until the government
released Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Raymundo Rivera Bravo, and others it
described as political prisoners in the southern state of Oaxaca.
Leftist groups took over Oaxaca's capital for five months last year
before police took it back and arrested dozens.

But the federal Attorney General's office said Wednesday that neither
Reyes nor Rivera had been detained by federal authorities, and that
there was no evidence they were in state custody.