News / Politics

House Speaker calls for intelligence briefings on Saudi oil attacks

Tuesday, 17 September 2019 3:21 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 17 September 2019 6:29 PM ]

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) arrives for her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill September 12, 2019 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called for a briefing for all House members on the recent Yemeni drone attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities.

A Pelosi spokesman said on Tuesday that House leaders asked for the intelligence briefings after the attacks on two Saudi Aramco oil facilities on Saturday that knocked out more than half the kingdom’s production. The strike also sent oil prices soaring.

Yemen's Houthi fighters have claimed responsibility for the attack, but the United States has rejected their claim with Trump saying that Iran appears to be responsible for the strike.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Monday the US military was preparing a response to the attacks.

Esper briefed President Donald Trump in the White House on Monday.

He did not directly put blame on Iran for the attack but accused it of undermining international order.

"The United States military, with our interagency team, is working with our partners to address this unprecedented attack and defend the international rules-based order that is being undermined by Iran," he said in a tweet.

Following a briefing from his military and intelligence advisers at the White House on Monday, Trump was asked whether Iran was behind the attack, Trump said, "It's certainly looking that way at this moment and we'll let you know. As soon as we find out definitively we'll let you know but it does look that way."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put the blame for the operation on Iran, claiming, “Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia” and that “there is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”

Tehran, however, dismissed the allegation, saying Washington seems to be shifting from a failed campaign of “maximum pressure” to one of “maximum lying” and “deceit” against the Islamic Republic.

PressTV-‘Saudi oil attacks similar to Gulf of Tonkin incident’

There is the possibility that “the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities are a clandestine ‘false flag’ operation similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident that sparked the escalation of the Vietnam War,” Professor Dennis Etler says.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet that “US & its clients are stuck in Yemen because of illusion that weapon superiority will lead to military victory.”

Yemen said it used 10 drones for Saturday’s operation, which was one of their largest retaliatory attacks ever inside the kingdom.

The Yemeni army has said the raids were carried out on the back of an intelligence operation and in cooperation with “certain honorable and freedom-seeking individuals within Saudi Arabia.”

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