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JEDDAH/DUBAI (Reuters): The United States was discussing with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies possible responses to an attack on Saudi oil facilities they blame on Iran and which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as an act of war on the kingdom.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday struck a cautious note, saying there were many options short of war with Iran, which denies involvement in the 14 September strikes that initially halved Saudi oil output. He ordered increased sanctions on Tehran.
“This is an attack of a scale we’ve just not seen before,” Pompeo told reporters before landing in Jeddah for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“The Saudis were the nation that were attacked. It was on their soil. It was an act of war against them directly.” The Saudi ambassador to Berlin said “everything is on the table”, telling Deutschlandfunk radio that options need to be discussed carefully. Riyadh, which described the assault has as a “test of global will”, on Wednesday displayed the remnants of 25 Iranian drones and missiles it said were used in the strike as undeniable evidence of Iranian aggression.
The United Arab Emirates on Thursday followed its main Arab ally Saudi Arabia in announcing it was joining a global maritime security coalition that Washington has been trying to build since a series of explosions on oil tankers in Gulf waters in recent months that were also blamed on Tehran.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which is battling a Saudi-led military coalition, claimed responsibility for the assault on two Saudi oil plants, including the world’s largest processing facility. US and Saudi officials rejected the claim, saying the attack had not come from the south.
The Houthis on Wednesday said they had listed dozens of sites in the UAE, the Middle East’s financial and tourism hub, as possible targets, a threat that could further strain a tense political atmosphere in the region.
Fellow Gulf OPEC producer Kuwait, which said earlier this week it was investigating the detection of a drone over its territory, has put its oil sector on high alert and raised security to the highest level as a precautionary measure. Pompeo headed to the UAE on Thursday for talks with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince after meeting Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed on Wednesday. “These subversive attacks aim to destabilise the region’s security and damaging the global energy supply and the global economy,” state media quoted Prince Mohammed as telling Pompeo.
