US President Donald Trump took to social media and wrote that the United States was prepared to respond to the devastating attacks on two oil installations in Saudi Arabia. The attacks have halved the state oil company’s production output.
Trump said in a tweet Sunday evening that the United States was “locked and loaded depending on verification.”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also put the blame for the attacks squarely on Iran, saying on Twitter that “Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply… There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”
Iran has rejected the US accusations that it was responsible for the devastating attack on two massive Saudi oil plants. They have called the US claims “maximum lies.” A commander in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard reiterated its forces could strike US military bases across the Mideast with their arsenal of ballistic missiles.
Though Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn attack. U.S. officials said that there are strong indications the fiery blasts were the result of cruise-missile strikes launched from Iraq or Iran. Their assessment contradicts claims by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen that their drones struck the two Saudi oil plants.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter, “Blaming Iran won’t end disaster. Accepting our April ’15 proposal to end war & begin talks may.”
Tensions between Iran and the U.S. and fears of a new war in the Middle East have been rising since the Trump administration withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. They had re-imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran in an attempt to push it into a more stringent deal involving broader security concessions.
Iran since June has been incrementally rolling back its obligations under the 2015 deal. They have also stepped up the uranium enrichment that brings them closer to bomb-making capability.
We shall keep you updated with more on this soon.
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