Iran denied on Sunday it was involved in Yemen rebel drone attacks the previous day targeting the world’s biggest oil processing facility and an oil field in Saudi Arabia, just hours after America’s top diplomat alleged that Tehran was behind the ‘unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply.’
Drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked the world’s largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and another major oil field Saturday, sparking huge fires at a vulnerable chokepoint for global energy supplies.
Oil prices surged on Monday, with Brent crude posting its biggest intra-day percentage gain since the Gulf War in 1991, after an attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities on Saturday shut over 5% of global supply.
Saudi oil sites attacked on Saturday — in a drone assault linked to Iran — were seen to have sustained damage after satellite images released Sunday captured char marks and smoke billowing from the world’s largest oil processing facility.
Americans commemorated 9/11 with solemn ceremonies and vowed Wednesday to ‘never forget’ 18 years after the deadliest terror attack on American soil.
Iran on Sunday hinted that it could release ‘within days’ a UK-flagged oil tanker it had seized in July in sensitive Gulf waters amid rising hostilities with Britain’s ally the United States.
Samples taken by the U.N. nuclear watchdog at what Israel’s prime minister called a ‘secret atomic warehouse’ in Tehran showed traces of uranium that Iran has yet to explain, two diplomats who follow the agency’s inspections work closely say.
Iran was poised Thursday to begin work on advanced centrifuges that will enrich uranium faster as the 2015 nuclear deal unravels further and a last-minute French proposal offering a $15-billion line of credit to compensate Iran for not being able to sell its crude oil abroad because of U.S. sanctions looked increasingly unlikely.
The US on Wednesday offered the captain of an Iranian oil tanker millions of dollars to dock the ship in a port where it could be seized.
The Trump administration stepped up pressure on Iran on Wednesday, imposing sanctions on an oil shipping network with ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and offering a reward of up to $15 million for anyone with information that could disrupt its faltering economy even further.
Saudi Arabia has deployed more troops in southern Yemen to try to contain clashes between nominal allies in the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis that risks further fragmenting the country.
The UN nuclear watchdog announced Friday that Iran had made good on its threat to enrich uranium above the prescribed limits of the 2015 nuclear accord.
Iran is obstructing a UN investigation into a site first identified by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year as a secret nuclear warehouse used to store radioactive material, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday night.
Israel has released more information about the Lebanese weapons facility it hit Sunday morning with two drones.
An Iranian oil tanker detained by the British in July and since released has been blacklisted by the US Treasury Department.
The United States attacked and disabled a critical Iranian database used to target oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, the New York Times reported Wednesday, citing several US security officials.
US President Trump’s ‘maximum pressure policy’ against Iran does not seem to be persuading the Islamic Republic to come to the negotiating table.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pledged Monday to keep their floundering coalition war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels together after an Emirati troop pullout and the rise of the southern separatists they supported.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says anyone who ‘touches,’ supports or allows an Iranian tanker carrying crude oil to dock risks U.S. sanctions.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo specifically singled out Iran in a speech on August 20 at a UN Security Council session on Middle East peace and security challenges.