WASHINGTON (AA): U.S. President Donald Trump threw cold water Monday onIran’s denial of involvement in drone attacks carried out on key SaudiArabian oil facilities.
“Remember when Iran shot down a drone, saying knowingly that it was intheir ‘airspace’ when, in fact, it was nowhere close,” Trump wrote onTwitter, referring to the downing of an American drone in June. “They stuckstrongly to that story knowing that it was a very big lie. Now they saythat they had nothing to do with the attack on Saudi Arabia. We’ll see?”
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility on Sunday for theattack, and carried out the day prior on two Aramco facilities, warningforeign companies and workers against coming close to the company’s siteswhich, they said, might “be targeted again”.
Iran, however, has denied any role in the coordinated attacks on an oilfield and the sprawling Abqaiq oil processing plant in eastern Saudi Arabia.
The incident prompted a spike in the price of brent crude, with prices upearly Monday morning by nearly 10%.
Tensions have flared between Washington and Tehran since Trump chose in May2018 to unilaterally remove the U.S. from a nuclear pact world powersstruck with Iran that provided the Islamic Republic with billions ofdollars in sanctions relief in exchange for unprecedented curbs on itsnuclear program.
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The Houthis, whose medium and long-range ballistic missiles are usuallyintercepted and neutralized by the Saudi air defense system, haverepeatedly targeted strategic locations in Saudi Arabia with armed drones.
Yemen has remained wracked by violence since 2014, when the Iran-alignedHouthi group overran much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.
The conflict escalated the following year, when Saudi Arabia and its Araballies launched a massive air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi gainsto support the country’s pro-Saudi government.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the raging conflict since 2016,according to the UN estimates.
