The United States believes the attacks that
crippled Saudi Arabian oil facilities last weekend originated in southwestern
Iran, a US official said on Tuesday, an assessment that further
increases tension in the Middle East.
Three officials, speaking to Reuters on
condition of anonymity, said the attacks involved both cruise missiles and
drones, indicating that they involved a higher degree of complexity and
sophistication than initially thought.
The officials did not provide evidence or
explain what U.S. intelligence they were using for the evaluations. Such
intelligence, if shared publicly, could further pressure Washington, Riyadh and
others to respond, perhaps even militarily.
Saudi state television said the Saudi Defense
Ministry will hold a media conference on Wednesday that will show evidence of
Iran's involvement in the Aramco attacks, including the use of Iranian weapons.
Iran denies involvement in the strikes.
Iran's allies in Yemen's civil war, the Houthi movement, claimed responsibility
for the attacks. The Houthis say they struck the plants with drones, some of
which were powered by jet engines.
US President Donald Trump on Monday said it
looked as if Iran - which has a long history of friction with neighbor Saudi
Arabia - was behind the attacks.
But in a sign that US allies remain
unconvinced, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he was unsure if
anyone had any evidence to say whether drones "came from one place or
another."
Saudi Arabia sought to reassure markets after
the attack on Saturday halved oil output, saying on Tuesday that full
production would be restored by month's end.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
on Tuesday ruled out talks with the United States unless the Trump
administration returns to the nuclear accord between Iran and the West that the
United States abandoned last year.
"Iranian officials, at any level, will
never talk to American officials ... this is part of their policy to put
pressure on Iran," Iranian state TV quoted him as saying.
Trump on Tuesday said he is not looking to
meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a UN event in New York this
month.
US-Iran relations deteriorated after Trump
quit the nuclear pact and reimposed sanctions over Tehran's nuclear and
ballistic programs, severely hurting the Iranian economy. Trump also wants
Iran to stop supporting regional proxies, including Yemen's Houthis.
Iran's clerical rulers openly support the
Houthis, who are fighting a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, but Tehran denies
that it actively supports the Yemeni group with military and financial support.
Despite years of air strikes against them,
the Houthi militia boasts drones and missiles able to reach deep into Saudi
Arabia, the result of an armament campaign pursued and expanded energetically
since Yemen's war began four years ago.
Another senior Trump administration official
said the Houthi claim to have used 10 drones in the attacks was undercut by the
fact that Abqaiq was struck at least 17 times. The second location, he added, was
hit at least twice by precision-guided munitions.
"The Houthi claim does not stand up to
scrutiny," said the US official, who spoke to reporters on condition of
anonymity and said the Houthis had never used the type of unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV), or drone, that was employed in the attacks.
Strains between Washington and Tehran have
risen more in recent months after attacks on tankers in the Gulf that the
United States blames on Tehran, and Iran's downing of a US military drone
that prompted preparations for a retaliatory air strike that Trump says he
called off at the last minute.
Saudi Arabia has asked international experts
to join its investigation, which indicates the attacks did not come from Yemen,
the Saudi foreign ministry said.
One of the three US officials expressed
confidence that Saudi Arabia's collection of materials following the attacks
would yield "compelling forensic evidence ... that will point to where
this attack came from."
A US team is helping Saudi Arabia evaluate
evidence from the attacks, which hit crucial facilities of Saudi state-owned
oil company Aramco in Abqaiq and Khurais and initially cut Saudi oil production
in half.
The Saudi energy minister said on Tuesday
that the kingdom will achieve 11 million barrels per day (bpd) capacity by the
end of September.
Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman also
told a news conference that the world's top oil exporter would keep full oil
supplies to customers this month.
He said Saudi Arabia would keep its role as
the secure supplier of global oil markets, adding that the kingdom needed to
take strict measures to prevent further attacks, which exposed the
vulnerability of Saudi Arabia's oil industry and the broader global economy.
Oil prices fell 5% after the news that Saudi
production is back, having surged more than 20% at one point on Monday - the
biggest intra-day jump since the 1990-91 Gulf crisis over Iraq’s invasion of
Kuwait.
A day after warning the United States was
"locked and loaded" to respond to the Saudi incident, Trump dialed
down his rhetoric, saying on Monday there was "no rush" to retaliate and Washington was coordinating with Gulf
Arab and European states.
"I'm not looking at options right now.
We want to find definitively who did this," Trump said.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was traveling
to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the Iran
nuclear pact, which European parties are trying to salvage, is one building
block "we need to get back to".
Saudi Arabia, which has supported tougher
US sanctions on Iran, said an initial investigation showed the strikes were
carried out with Iranian weapons.
Galip Dalay, a non-resident fellow at the
Brookings Doha Center think tank, said the sophistication of the attacks and
the fact such an operation would require high-level approval pointed at Tehran.
"Iran is essentially saying, 'If I can't
get my oil into international markets, then no one should be able to do
it'," he said. "They are basically looking to destabilize an
international market that they have been cut out of by US sanctions."
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