DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- A weekend drone attack on Saudi Arabia that cut into global energy supplies and halved the kingdom's oil production threatened Sunday to fuel a regional crisis, as the U.S. released new evidence to back up its allegation that Iran was responsible for the assault.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump tweeted, "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!"
The tweet followed a National Security Council meeting at the White House that included Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
A U.S. official said all options, including a military response, were on the table but that no decisions had been made Sunday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations.
Hours earlier, senior U.S. officials said satellite imagery and other intelligence showed the strike was inconsistent with one launched from Yemen, where Iranian-backed Houthi rebels had claimed responsibility.
Iran, meanwhile, called the U.S. claims "maximum lies," while a commander in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard reiterated that its forces could strike U.S. military bases across the Mideast with an arsenal of ballistic missiles.
The U.S. government produced satellite photos showing what officials said were at least 19 points of impact at two Saudi energy facilities, including damage at the heart of the kingdom's crucial oil processing plant at Abqaiq. Officials said the photos show points of impact consistent with an attack from the direction of Iran or Iraq, rather than from Yemen to the south.
Iraq denied Sunday that its territory was used for an attack on Saudi Arabia, and U.S. officials said a strike from there would be a violation of Iraq's sovereignty.
The U.S. officials said additional devices, which apparently didn't reach their targets, were recovered northwest of the facilities and are being jointly analyzed by Saudi and American intelligence. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, did not address whether the drone could have been launched from Yemen, then sent on a roundabout path. But they did not explicitly rule it out.
Actions on any side could break into the open a conflict that's been raging just below the surface of the wider Persian Gulf in recent months. Already, there have been attacks on oil tankers that Washington blames on Tehran, at least one suspected Israeli strike on Shiite forces in Iraq, and Iran's downing of a U.S. military surveillance drone.
The attack Saturday on Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq plant and its Khurais oil field has caused the interruption of an estimated 5.7 million barrels of the kingdom's crude oil production per day, equivalent to more than 5% of the world's daily supply. It remained unclear how King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will respond to an attack targeting the heart of the Saudi oil industry.
Crude oil futures shot up 9.5% to $60 as trading opened Sunday evening in New York. A spike in oil prices could have negative effects for the global economy.
Saudi Arabia has promised to fill in the cut in production with its reserves, but it has not said how long it will take to repair the damage. The Wall Street Journal cited Saudi officials as saying a third of output would be restored today, but a return to full production may take weeks.
Trump tweeted that he had approved the release of U.S. strategic petroleum reserves "if needed" to stabilize energy markets. The president said the final amount of the release, if any, would be "sufficient to keep the markets well-supplied."
Meanwhile, oil-rich Kuwait said it would increase security around the country's "vital sites" in response to the attacks.
A senior Kuwaiti diplomat said his government was "extremely concerned" about the region's stability after Saturday's attacks. The diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, did not say whether Kuwait believed Iran was directly involved.
The attack "aimed to disrupt oil markets worldwide and to undermine regional stability," he said. "It's a very dangerous period in the gulf region."
In Twitter posts late Saturday, Pompeo directly blamed Iran for the Saudi attack.
"Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply," Pompeo wrote. "There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."
The U.S., Western nations, their Gulf Arab allies and United Nations experts say Iran supplies the Houthis with weapons and drones -- an allegation that Tehran denies.
U.S. officials previously alleged at least one recent drone attack on Saudi Arabia was from Iraq, where Iran backs Shiite militias. Those militias in recent weeks have been targeted themselves by airstrikes, with at least one believed to have been carried out by Israel.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Sunday dismissed Pompeo's remarks as "blind and futile comments."
"The Americans adopted the 'maximum pressure' policy against Iran, which, due to its failure, is leaning toward 'maximum lies,'" Mousavi said in a statement.
Separately, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi's office issued a statement on Sunday denying the drone attack started from there.
Houthi leader Muhammad al-Bukhaiti reiterated the group's claim that it had carried out the strikes. "We confirm that the Yemeni forces are the ones who hit the oil fields, and everyone knows our credibility, in every attack we announce," he said in a telephone interview.
"We don't need to provide evidence," he added, saying that Pompeo had not provided any proof that strikes had started from Iran or Iraq.
THREATS EXCHANGED
Iran, meanwhile, kept up its threats.
"Because of the tension and sensitive situation, our region is like a powder keg," said Iranian Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a commander in the Revolutionary Guard. "When these contacts come too close, when forces come into contact with one another, it is possible a conflict happens because of a misunderstanding."
Hajizadeh, who leads the country's aerospace program, said in an interview published across Iranian media Sunday that Revolutionary Guard forces were ready for a counterattack if America responded, naming the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar and Al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates as immediate targets, as well as U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.
"Wherever they are, it only takes one spark and we hit their vessels, their air bases, their troops," he said in a video published online with English subtitles.
Naser Imani, a former member of the guard's political bureau, said the Trump administration should take the attack as a warning to the United States and its Persian Gulf partners.
"If a few Houthis can cause this extensive damage, imagine what Iran could do if it was forced into a military conflict," he said in a telephone interview Sunday. "Iran has proved in the past few months that it has the will to pull the trigger as well as the military power to do so."
It wasn't just Iran making threats. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican close to Trump, suggested retaliatory strikes targeting Iran. "Iran will not stop their misbehavior until the consequences become more real, like attacking their refineries, which will break the regime's back," Graham wrote on Twitter.
With the U.N. General Assembly taking place in a little over a week, there had been speculation of a potential meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the summit's sidelines, possibly in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions the American leader imposed on Tehran after unilaterally withdrawing from a nuclear accord more than a year ago.
But Trump seemed to reject that idea Sunday night, tweeting: "The Fake News is saying that I am willing to meet with Iran, 'No Conditions.' That is an incorrect statement (as usual!)." In fact, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters last week that "the president has said that he is prepared to meet with no conditions."
Information for this article was contributed by Jon Gambrell, Zeke Miller, Amir Vahdat, Aya Batrawy, Bassem Mroue and Samy Magdy of The Associated Press; by Eric Schmitt, Farnaz Fassihi and David D. Kirkpatrick of The New York Times; and by Kareem Fahim, Anne Gearan, Erin Cunningham, Steven Mufson, Steve Hendrix, Ali Al-Mujahed, Missy Ryan, Dan Lamothe and Carol Morello of The Washington Post.
A Section on 09/16/2019