Electricity, internet returns across Syria

Syria's electricity supply has gradually returned after it was cut across the country and internet connections were briefly disrupted.

SANA news agency quoted the electricity minister saying that the network was returning and would be restored to its earlier capacity by midnight on Thursday.

It did not say what caused the cut.

It said earlier that the "electricity work has been cut in all governorates. Attempts to find the cause of the outage have begun."

A Reuters witness confirmed that electricity had gone down in Damascus, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the five-year-old conflict in Syria, said that power had been cut in the "vast majority of governorates".

SANA reported the Syria Telecommunications Company as saying internet services were partially halted on Thursday "as a result of sudden damage to one of the network hubs", but were later restored.