US President Donald Trump says his country is ‘locked and loaded’ after the suspected Iranian attacks on Saudi oil plants.
Iran has denied it is behind the drone strikes, with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen instead claiming responsiblity.
However, America has now released satellite images it says prove Iran was responsible for the raids, which has more than halved Saudi Arabia’s oil output.
The pictures show how the attacks could only have been carried out from the direction of Iran or Iraq and not Yemen, the US claims.
(Image: VIDEOS OBTAINED BY REUTERS)
(Image: Getty)
They have been published amid rising tensions between Iran and the US, with an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander warning that his nation is prepared for a ‘fully-fledged war’.
He also threatened US bases, saying that they were within range of Iranian missiles.
Trump has announced that he will await Saudi Arabia’s conclusions on the source of the attack before acting.
(Image: VIDEOS OBTAINED BY REUTERS)
He tweeted: “Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed.”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for the strikes in Abqaiq, the site of largest oil processing plant.
The plant is owned by Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Aramco oil company.
(Image: Mikhail Metzel/TASS)
He said there was no evidence the attack came from Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthis for over four years in a conflict widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Muslim rival Iran.
“Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi dismissed the U.S. allegation it was responsible as “pointless”.
The U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said on Sunday there were 19 points of impact in the attack on Saudi facilities and that evidence showed the launch area was west-northwest of the targets – not south from Yemen.
