The story: Iraqi media has erupted in recrimination after a single Nov. 8 drone strike on a gas storage unit was enough to plunge most of Iraqi Kurdistan into darkness. The attack halted production at the Khor Mor gas field and cut up to 2,800 megawatts (MW) of generation. Coverage has turned on why one strike could black out the semi-autonomous region, who launched the drone and whether the growing rift between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) invited it.

The coverage: Within hours of the Nov. 8 strike on Khor Mor’s liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) unit, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) electricity ministry spokesperson Omed Ahmed told KDP-affiliated Kurdistan24 that recovery “depends entirely” on the field.

  • Output fell from more than 3,700 MW to around 1,000, down to about 27% of normal operating levels, another ministry source said.

Opinion split over whether the Kurdish divide had invited the strike. Late on Nov. 8, senior PUK official Mahmoud Khoshnaw warned on Twitter/X that the strained relationship had “whetted the appetite” of those targeting Khor Mor.

  • Former Kurdistan Parliament member Abdul Salam Barwari dismissed as “laughable” claims that either party was behind the strike, noting in the leftist newspaper Al-Mada on Nov. 10 that both depend on the field.

  • On Nov. 11, Iraq's National Security Service head Basim Al-Badri told a Chatham House session in London that the attack was tied to the Kurdistan region’s internal politics, without ruling out a Kurdish party’s involvement.


Baghdad has framed the assault in national terms. On Nov. 10, Sabah Al-Numan, who speaks for Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, described it to KDP-affiliated Rudaw as an attempt to undermine the semi-autonomous region’s unity and social peace.

  • Numan also claimed in comments to the official Iraqi News Agency the same day that the government had identified those responsible, without naming them.

  • A day earlier, Iraqi security sources had pointed to Tuz Khurmatu, a disputed district in Salah Al-Din Governorate, as a possible launch area.

The gas field had already been drawn into the Zaidi government’s mounting feud with the Iran-backed armed group Kata’ib Hezbollah.

  • On Nov. 7, the eve of the strike, Kata’ib Hezbollah security official Abu Mujahid Al-Assaf accused people around the premier of inciting attacks on Khor Mor. The aim, he claimed, was to extort the United Arab Emirates (UAE), home to the field’s operator Dana Gas.

The context/analysis: A safety system at the field turned a single strike into a region-wide blackout. A site source told independent outlet Peregraf that an automated mechanism halts production and exports whenever the field is attacked.

  • Khor Mor fuels more than 80% of the semi-autonomous region’s generation, its operators say. The shutdown has revived the private generators that the KRG’s 24-hour Runaki power program aims to retire by the end of 2026.

  • The grid has gone dark before without a strike. In July, Dana Gas suspended work over “credible security threats,” and generation fell by about 2,500 MW.

Attacks on the field have repeatedly drawn federal pledges of protection, but none has yet kept a drone out of its skies. After two drones hit a gas storage tank on Nov. 26, 2025, Baghdad ordered the federal defense ministry to shield the site from aerial attack.

  • One Iraqi Kurdish official claimed in September that a British anti-drone system had reached the field in Nov. 2025 but was never used, as Baghdad would not issue the end-user certificate London required.

  • Nearly a year on, Khor Mor’s radar spotted the Nov. 8 drone, but the site had no air defense able to stop it, the Peregraf source added.

The grid depends on one field under the control of the PUK, which announced on Nov. 5 that it is leaving the KRG. The Sulaimaniyah-based party holds the ground around the site that powers the KDP’s strongholds of Duhok and Erbil.

  • The PUK has long guarded Chamchamal, the district around the field, against KDP-linked ventures. In 2022 it blocked pipeline work by the KDP-connected firm KAR Group after PUK leader Bafel Talabani complained the contract had been awarded without a tender.

After the KDP reactivated the Kurdistan Parliament without its rival on Nov. 4, dozens of KAR Group employees were expelled from their offices in Chamchamal with no reason given.

  • The firm was extending a gas pipeline from Khor Mor toward Erbil.

  • According to PUK-affiliated Channel8, Talabani told party lawmakers on Nov. 7 that Chamchamal fuels the Kurdistan region yet lacks services.

The future: The lights may return before the problems behind the blackout are resolved. Supply had recovered to about 1,500 MW by Nov. 11 on hydropower and other fuels, and Sulaimaniyah will review private-generator hours on Nov. 13.

  • The outage comes seven weeks before Runaki’s year-end deadline for round-the-clock power across Iraqi Kurdistan, a pledge now hinging on Dana Gas, which has set no restart date.

  • On Nov. 11, Zaidi ordered the joint federal-KRG investigation he had launched two days earlier to report “as quickly as possible,” and the federal parliament set up a temporary committee the same day. Whether investigators look to Tuz Khurmatu or to Kurdish rivals may shape how far the PUK and Baghdad cooperate on protecting the field.

The KDP may govern without the PUK, but it cannot easily keep the lights on without Chamchamal.

  • Baghdad may also stand to gain from the KDP-PUK dispute. Its 2027 draft budget seeks tighter federal control over the Kurdistan region’s energy revenues and gas, and on Nov. 9 Zaidi ordered the federal oil ministry to supply Kurdish households with cooking gas until Khor Mor restarts.

  • Whether KAR Group’s staff return may show if the parties can keep energy out of their rivalry, as the KDP signals readiness for talks. Khor Mor’s operators began supplying gas to Iraq’s electricity ministry in August, over objections from the KRG. Closer PUK dealings with Baghdad could leave the KDP with less say over its own power supply.