New Delhi:
The weapons used to strike two Saudi oil plants were provided by Iran, the Riyadh-led coalition fighting in Yemen said on Monday. “The investigation is continuing and all indications are that weapons used in both attacks came from Iran,” coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki told reporters in Riyadh, adding they were now probing “from where they were fired”.
US President Donald Trump also on Monday declared said it "looks" like Iran was behind the explosive attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities. However, Trump ruled out any military retaliation for now to the strike against a key US Mideast ally. Earlier, Trump said Iran was likely to blame, fanning new fears of conflict in the Gulf region.
Oil prices rocketed on Monday after the strikes on Abqaiq, the world’s largest oil processing facility, and the Khurais oil field in eastern Saudi Arabia knocked out nearly half of the top crude exporter’s production.
Drones attacked the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and an oilfield operated by Saudi Aramco on Saturday, sparking a huge fire at a processor crucial to global energy supplies. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks in Buqyaq and the Khurais oil field, though Yemen's Houthi rebels previously launched drone assaults deep inside of the kingdom.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo while blaming Iran on Sunday had said “there is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen” and points the finger at Tehran.
"Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply," he added.
The plant has also been targeted in the past by militants. Al-Qaida-claimed suicide bombers tried but failed to attack the oil complex in February 2006.
A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the rebels since March 2015. The Iranian-backed Houthis hold Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and other territory in the Arab world's poorest country.
The war has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The violence has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine and killed more than 90,000 people since 2015, according to the US-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, which tracks the conflict.
