Saudi oil attacks: All the latest updates

Tensions in the Middle East have escalated following drone attacks on two major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.

The pre-dawn attacks on Saturday last week knocked out more than half of crude output from the world’s top exporter – five percent of the global oil supply – and cut output by 5.7 million barrels per day.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have been locked in a war with a Saudi-UAE-led coalition since 2015, claimed responsibility for the attacks, warning Saudi Arabia their targets “will keep expanding”.

But US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo swiftly accused Iran of being behind the assault, without providing any evidence. The claim was rejected by Tehran that said the allegations were meant to justify “actions” against it.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, promised to “confront and deal with this terrorist aggression”, while US President Donald Trump hinted at possible military action.

Here are the latest updates:

Monday, September 23

UK says Iran responsible for attack on Saudi oil facilities

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain had concluded Iran was responsible for the attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, and Britain would consider taking part in a US-led military effort to bolster the Gulf kingdom’s defences.

But Johnson also said his country would work with allies to “de-escalate” Middle East tensions.

The Conservative prime minister told reporters flying with him on Sunday to New York for the UN General Assembly that Britain “is attributing responsibility with a very high degree of probability to Iran” for the September 14 attack by drones and cruise missiles.

Sunday, September 22

Pompeo says US wishes to avoid war with Iran 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the US aims to avoid war with Iran, adding that the order to deploy troops in the Gulf region is for “deterrence and defence”. 

“Our mission set is to avoid war,” Pompeo told Fox News. “You saw what [defence] Secretary Esper announced on Friday, we are putting additional forces in the region for the purpose of deterrence and defence.

“If that deterrence should continue to fail, I am also confidant that President Trump would continue to take the actions that are necessary,” he added. 

What’s next for Saudi Aramco and world oil markets?

Al Jazeera’s current affairs programme Counting the Cost discusses why Saudi Arabia’s billion-dollar defences failed to protect its oil facilities and how it affects oil prices.

Watch the Counting the Cost episode here.

Navy commander says Iran ready to defend marine borders

The head of Iran’s navy said the Islamic republic was ready to defend its marine borders and would deliver a “crushing reaction” to any aggression.

“In case of any miscalculation and aggression by the enemy, [the navy], along with other armed forces of the country, will give the most crushing reaction in the shortest time possible,” Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi was cited as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

“Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s defence power is at its highest possible level and forces of army and [Revolutionary Guards] are ready to defend marine borders of the country.”

‘Entirely implausible’ to say Houthis behind Saudi attack: UK

Dominic Raab, the British foreign secretary, said it was implausible that attacks on Saudi oil facilities were conducted by Yemen’s Houthi movement, adding that Riyadh had the right to defend itself against any further strikes.

“I find it, from the information I have seen, I find it entirely implausible and lacking in credibility to suggest that those attacks came from Houthi rebels,” Raab told the BBC, but he declined to say to whom Britain attributed the attacks.

“Before we attribute responsibility I want to be absolutely crystal clear, because that will mean the action that we take can be as robust and as widely supported as possible.”

Iran to present regional security plan at UNGA: Rouhani

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country would present a regional cooperation plan to create security in the Gulf when he attends the United Nations General Assembly this week.

In a televised speech marking the anniversary of the start of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Rouhani said Iran extended its “hand of friendship and brotherhood” towards countries in the region willing to cooperate in the Tehran-led effort to oversee security in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, a vital gateway for the global oil industry.

But in response to a recent decision by the US to send more troops to the area, Rouhani went on to warn against the presence of foreign forces in the Gulf.

“Foreign forces can cause problems and insecurity for our people and for our region,” Rouhani said.

UN welcomes Houthi offer to halt attacks on Saudi Arabia

The UN envoy for Yemen welcomed an offer from the country’s Houthi rebels to halt all attacks on Saudi Arabia, saying it could bring an end to years of bloody conflict.

Martin Griffiths said the implementation of the initiative by the Houthis “in good faith could send a powerful message of the will to end the war”.

Saturday, September 21

Saudi says will respond if Iran role confirmed

Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir said Riyadh would take the appropriate steps if its investigation confirmed that Iran was responsible for the attacks. 

“The kingdom will take the appropriate measures based on the results of the investigation, to ensure its security and stability,” al-Jubeir told a news conference, declining to speculate about specific actions.

“We are certain that the launch did not come from Yemen, it came from the north. The investigations will prove that.”

Iran threatens to make any aggressor ‘main battlefield’

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that any country that attacks the Islamic republic will see its territory turn into the conflict’s “main battlefield”.

“Whoever wants their land to become the main battlefield, go ahead,” Guards commander Hossein Salami told a news conference in Tehran. “We will never allow any war to encroach upon Iran’s territory.”

“Be careful, a limited aggression will not remain limited. We are after punishment and we will continue until the full destruction of any aggressor,” he said.

CEO: Saudi Aramco ‘stronger than ever’

Saudi Aramco has emerged from the September 14 attacks on its oil facilities “stronger than ever”, Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser told employees in a message.

“The fires that were intended to destroy Saudi Aramco had an unintended consequence: they galvanised 70,000 of us around a mission to rebound quickly and confidently, and Saudi Aramco has come out of this incident stronger than ever,” said the message.

Friday, September 20

US to deploy more troops to Saudi Arabia

The Pentagon said the United States will deploy additional troops and military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to beef up security, as Trump decided, at least for now, against any immediate military attacks in response to those on the Saudi oil industry.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said this was just the first step, and he did not rule out additional moves down the road. He said the deployment was a response to requests from the Saudis and the UAE to help improve their air and missile defences.

Houthis say will stop all attacks on Saudi Arabia

An official with the Houthis said the rebel group will stop aiming missile and drone attacks at Saudi Arabia, warning that a continuation of the war could lead to “dangerous developments”.

“We declare ceasing to target the Saudi Arabian territory with military drones, ballistic missiles and all other forms of weapons, and we wait for a reciprocal move from them,”  Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthis’ supreme political council said on Al Masirah TV.

“We reserve the right to respond if they fail to reciprocate positively to this initiative,” he said, adding that the continuation of the Yemen war “will not benefit any side”.

Hezbollah threatens Saudi Arabia, demands end to Yemen war

The leader of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has called on Saudi Arabia to stop its war in Yemen, or else it will face more attacks on its soil.

In a televised speech, Hassan Nasrallah warned Saudi Arabia and the UAE not to incite war “because your houses are made of glass”.

Nasrallah said one attack on Saudi Arabia knocked out half of the country’s oil production, so “what will another strike do?”.

He said buying more air defences from the US would not help the kingdom defend itself, and added that Yemen’s Houthi rebels had sophisticated missiles and drones.

Saudi Arabia “should think well, as a war with Iran will mean their destruction,” he added.

Iran’s Zarif says Saudi, UAE want to ‘fight Iran to the last American’

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that US-allied Saudi Arabia and the UAE seem to wish to “fight Iran to the last American”.

Zarif was responding to a statement a day earlier by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Abu Dhabi saying that: “While the foreign minister of Iran is threatening all-out war and to fight to the last American, we’re here to build up a coalition aimed at achieving peace.”

Zarif tweeted on Friday: “@SecPompeo has it the other way around: It’s not #Iran that wishes to fight to the last American; rather, it is his #B_Team hosts who seem to wish to fight Iran to the last American.”

Zarif has in the past said that a so-called “B-team” including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Abu Dhabi’s crown prince could goad the US president into conflict with Tehran.

Aramco says full output from Khurais site to resume by end of September

Saudi Aramco is confident full production will resume by the end of September from Khurais, one of two oil sites attacked a week ago, a company executive said.

Aramco was shipping equipment from the US and Europe to rebuild the damaged facilities, Fahad Abdulkarim, Aramco’s general manager for the southern area oil operation, told reporters on a tour organised by the state company.

Reuters reporters were shown repair work under way, with cranes erected around two burnt-out stabilisation columns, which form part of oil-gas separation units, and melted pipes.

“We are working 24/7,” Abdulkarim said.

Yemen rebels accuse Saudi, allies of ‘serious escalation’ in Hodeidah

Yemen’s Houthi rebels accused Saudi Arabia and its allies of endangering a fragile truce around Hodeidah with strikes on four rebel targets north of the key aid port.

“The intensive raids on Hodeidah are a serious escalation that could torpedo the Sweden agreement,” one of the rebels’ leaders, Mohammed Abdulsalam, said, referring to the UN-supervised truce agreed outside Stockholm in December.

Thursday’s strikes were the first reported against the Iran-backed rebels since they claimed a twin attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry last weekend that Washington and Riyadh have blamed on Tehran.

“The [Saudi-led] coalition will be responsible for the consequences of this escalation and we’ll be watching the UN stance on this situation closely,” Abdessalem added, in comments reported by the rebels’ Al Masirah television.

The coalition destroyed four sites outside Hodeidah used by the rebels to assemble remote control vessels and marine mines, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

Thursday, September 19

Imran Khan says Pakistan fully supports Saudi Arabia

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said his country fully supports the kingdom following the last week’s attack.

Khan made the comments during a visit to Saudi Arabia, where he met Saudi’s MBS. 

The prime minister added he strongly condemned the attack on the Saudi oil facilities, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Russia calls for talks to defuse tensions

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday urged all countries in the Gulf to sit down for talks to defuse tensions following an attack on Saudi oil infrastructure, Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Speaking in Moscow, Lavrov called for measures to be put in place to stop a similar situation happening in the region again and said that groundless accusations against Iran over the attacks were inflaming tensions.

Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif warns of ‘all-out war’

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the result of any US or Saudi military attack against his country would result in an “all-out war”.

“I am making a very serious statement that we don’t want war; we don’t want to engage in a military confrontation … But we won’t blink to defend our territory,” Zarif told CNN.