Tag Archives: Attack

The Red Heifers played a role in the Hamas attack on October 7th

Red-Heifers-Israel

Important Takeaways:

  • Twenty miles north of Jerusalem, five Texas Red Angus cows chew on grass, oblivious to the fact that their mere presence in Israel was cited by Hamas as a reason for its massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7. The terror organization’s spokesperson says the cows were a justification for the attack, stating that bringing them to Israel was “an aggression” based on a “detestable religious myth.”
  • In Ancient Shiloh, located in Samaria, also referred to as the West Bank, Moriyah Shapira proudly showcases the red heifers, which were brought to Israel after a long, tedious search. The animals comply with a very specific set of characteristics outlined in verses in the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament.
  • The Hebrew Bible states that red heifers are necessary for a purification ceremony to enter the Temple or its portable predecessor, the Tabernacle. Moses performed a ceremony with red heifer ashes that were used for the Tabernacle in the Sinai before the Jews entered Israel after his death.
  • Hamas has called the importation of the red cows an act of “aggression” because it falsely believes that the presence of the cows may ignite the rebuilding of the Temple, which the group thinks would end Arab control of the Temple Mount, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located.

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How a new World War could unfold: Experts say preparation is the biggest deterrence

Map-Russia-Attack-2044

Important Takeaways:

  • Long-range missiles strike civilian targets across Europe. Baltic States are invaded. AI-controlled tanks rule the battlefield. As NATO warns of Russian attack in 20 years, a terrifying prediction of how it will unfold
  • The year 2024 is off to an alarming start.
  • Almost two full years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and with the Middle East teetering on the brink of disaster following Hamas’ October 7th attacks on Israel, the threat of a wider war looms large on the horizon.
  • Prime ministers, defense secretaries and military chiefs have claimed that the threat of a major conflict is greater now than at any other time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
  • Phase One: Cyber warfare and missile strikes
    • ‘Cyber-attacks have real battlefield applications – the Russians used these in the prelude to the invasion to Ukraine to take down the Viasat communications network, among other things,’ RUSI associate fellow and defense analyst Sam Cranny-Evans said.
    • But technological advancement in the coming years means Russia’s capacity to employ cyber warfare to sew chaos in NATO’s ranks could be orders of magnitude greater when the time comes to attack.
  • Phase Two: Invasion – by land, sea and air
    • Hodges said Russia will have learned from the mistakes made in Ukraine
    • In one scenario, Gen. Hodges said Moscow could use this renewed military strength to first attack the narrow strip of land known as Suwalki Gap, sandwiched between Poland, Lithuania and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
    • This second phase would involve sending thousands of Russian soldiers, AI-controlled tanks and Special Forces, to attack one of the Baltic states on NATO’s eastern flank – most likely either Lithuania, Poland or Estonia.
    • And Gen. Hodges says that after Putin had attacked a nation on NATO’s eastern flank, Russia would wait to see how the military alliance would respond.
    • And if NATO did hesitate, Putin would not stop, Gen. Hodges predicts.
    • ‘If we hesitated, that failure to live up to our obligations under Article 5 to protect member states… it would break the alliance. It would be a staggering blow to NATO if we didn’t live up to what we said we were going to do,’ Gen. Hodges said.
  • Russia’s allies could join the fight
    • In recent years Russia has been forging closer ties with other powers, each of whom has their own deep-rooted grievances with what they see as a hegemonic world order led by the US and its Western allies.
    • Iran, for example, represents a grave threat in the Middle East, with a fearsome military and the resources to develop nuclear weapons – something Gen. Hodges said would likely happen in years to come.
    • With this in mind, it’s less likely Beijing would wade into a European theatre to back up Russia in a conflict with NATO forces.
    • But a scenario in which the Chinese Communist Party seizes such an opportunity to launch an invasion of Taiwan in an effort to bring the sovereign, self-governed island back under control – while NATO is focused on the threat from Moscow – is certainly a plausible one.
  • So how can the West stop this from happening?
    • According to experts, deterrence is the key.
    • This requires NATO and its member states to have a military that is not only ready to repel any invading Russian force, but strong enough to outmatch Moscow’s armies to the point that the Kremlin will be unwilling to launch an attack in the first place.
    • ‘Deterrence is both having the military capability and signaling to your foe your willingness to use that capability – and your resolve to see it through to the end,’ Sam Cranny-Evans says.
    • Gen. Ryan said: ‘Getting ready could be enough to avert a wider war. Not getting ready could invite one.’

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Cold as Ice: 13 year old attacks 76 year old woman robbing her and leaving her with a broken hip

Matthew 24:12 “And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”

Important Takeaways:

  • 13-Year-Old Girl Arrested in Hip-Breaking Attack on 76-Year-Old NYC Woman
  • Surveillance video showed the attackers laughing and smirking as the 76-year-old woman was violently thrown to the ground, breaking her hip
  • Surveillance video obtained earlier this week shows the woman struggling to keep the front door of her building closed, but the attackers were able to force their way in.
  • One grabs the woman’s purse, spins her and throws her to the ground, a fall which broke the woman’s hip. After she falls, another suspect is seen smirking on camera. They took off out the front door with her purse, which had about $50 and her wallet, along with a debit card and insurance cards inside, authorities have said
  • A neighbor said he saw the woman on the ground and ran outside to help.

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Gunman wounds NYC police officer inside station hours after ambushing patrol officers

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – A gunman opened fire inside a New York City police station on Sunday, striking a lieutenant in the arm, some 12 hours after he had ambushed a patrol van in the same neighborhood, wounding an officer, police said.

The gunman was arrested at the police station. The two officers were being treated in hospital and were expected to fully recover from their wounds, officials said at a news conference.

“This was an attempt to assassinate two police officers … it was a premeditated effort to kill,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “An attack on a police officer is an attack on all of us.”

The gunman, whose name has not yet been released by authorities, entered the 41st Precinct headquarters in the Bronx borough just before 8 a.m. (1300 GMT), pulled out a .9mm hand gun and started firing at the front desk where several officers stood, officials said.

He then walked into an area next to the desk and fired several rounds at point blank range at several more officers and a civilian staffer, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said.

“It is only by the grace of God and heroic actions of those inside the building who took him into custody that we are not talking about police officers murdered,” he said.

“This coward immediately laid down but only after he ran out of bullets,” Shea said.

A lieutenant, who returned fire, was shot in the upper left arm.

On Saturday night a uniformed police officer who was sitting in his police van with his partner was shot by the same gunman, police said. He walked up to the vehicle and began a conversation with the two officers in the vehicle before suddenly opening fire, striking one policeman in the chin and neck, police said.

The officers did not return fire. The wounded officer’s partner got in the driver’s seat and drove him to the hospital.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; editing by Grant McCool)

Iraqis rebuild wrecked protest camp as violence escalates

NASSIRIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – Anti-government protesters in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya say they will not back down despite the destruction of their camp by gunmen in an attack that left at least two people dead.

Unidentified gunmen in four vehicles tore through the camp late on Sunday and set the protesters’ tents on fire, police and medical sources said. The incident came a day after security forces had made a violent nationwide attempt to close down such settlements.

The protesters said they now intended to make their camp more permanent and on Tuesday they began to clear the ruins and build new huts out of bricks and mortar that would provide better protection.

“After they burned our tents, we started building with bricks. And if they destroy the brick-built camp, we will use the bricks of our houses, I swear by God. We do all that for the sake of our motherland, Iraq,” said one protester, who declined to give his name.

Mass protests against corruption, economic decline and foreign political interference have rocked Iraq since October.

Nearly 500 people have been killed while demonstrating against the largely Iranian-backed ruling elite. After a lull this month, protests resumed in Baghdad and other cities, including Nassiriya, Basra and Najaf.

Nassiriya has been a major flashpoint with frequent violent clashes between protesters and security forces.

As they began to put their protest camp back together, volunteers turned al-Haboubi square in central Nassiriya into a construction site. A giant billboard overlooking the scene reads: “The fearful do not create freedom”.

“We will build with bricks, and if they destroy bricks, we will build with concrete. Iraqis won’t step back until they regain all rights,” another protester said.

(Reporting by Maher Nazeh; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Giles Elgood)

Jewish grocery was targeted in New Jersey attack, motives unclear: officials

Jewish grocery was targeted in New Jersey attack, motives unclear: officials
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two armed individuals targeted a New Jersey kosher grocery in an attack that killed six people including the shooters, though the motive of the attack remains unclear, public safety officials said on Wednesday.

A police shootout with two people armed with high-powered rifles erupted after midday on Tuesday in Jersey City, New Jersey. The six dead included three civilians, one police officer and both shooters, authorities said.

Police officers use vehicles for protection during a shootout in Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S. December 10, 2019 in this still image obtained from a social media video. @GABRIELANGELVALLE /via REUTERS

The four-hour gun battle at the Jewish JC Kosher Supermarket erupted after the pair shot the police officer at a nearby cemetery, which they fled in a white van.

“They exited the van and they proceeded to attack this location in a targeted manner,” Jersey City Public Safety Director James Shea told a morning news conference. “With the amount of ammunition they had, we have to assume they would have continued attacking human beings if we hadn’t been there.”

He did not comment on why the grocery was targeted but said the shooters appeared to choose it rather than other people or locations on the street. Police declined to release the names or genders of the shooters.

The New York Times reported that a suspect involved in the shooting had posted anti-Semitic and anti-police messages online and cited law enforcement officials as saying investigators believed the attack was motivated by those sentiments.

Jersey City officials were not immediately available for comment.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop ordered police to be on high alert to protect Jewish neighborhoods following the attack.

“Due to an excess of caution the community may see additional police resources in the days/weeks ahead,” Fulop wrote. “We have no indication there are any further threat(s).”

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted that while there was no known specific threat to that city, he had placed city police on high alert to protect Jewish residents.

“Tonight NYPD assets are being deployed to protect key locations in the Jewish community,” he said late Tuesday.

Police had said earlier on Tuesday they believed the kosher grocery was randomly singled out by the shooters.

Some local media reported the initial confrontation between the suspects and police near the Jersey City cemetery, about a mile away from the supermarket, was linked to a previous homicide investigation.

The dead police officer was shot at the cemetery shortly before the shootout around the grocery began.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani and Barbara Goldberg in New York and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Scott Malone and Steve Orlofsky)

‘So many dead’: Survivors describe terrifying Burkina Faso ambush

‘So many dead’: Survivors describe terrifying Burkina Faso ambush
OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – A mine worker shot during an ambush on a mining convoy in Burkina Faso said on Friday he was one of only three survivors from a bus with up to 80 people aboard, suggesting the death toll may be much higher than officially reported.

A fellow survivor gave a similar account of Wednesday’s militant attack on the convoy of five buses, which Burkinabe authorities said killed 38 people and injured 60.

Abel Kabore, 35, described the attackers, some speaking a foreign language and shouting “Allahu Akbar”, – Arabic for “God is great”, raking three buses with bullets after a security vehicle escorting the convoy hit a landmine. The first two buses were able to escape, he said.

“The three buses which were shot…there were so many dead. It was over 100. We were on the ground. We saw everything,” he said quietly at a hospital in the capital Ouagadougou. Of the people on his bus, “only 3 of us survived.”

He said each bus had been carrying 70-80 people. A security source who works in the sector and a worker at the mine had previously said the convoy was likely carrying around 250 people in all, leaving dozens unaccounted for based on the authorities’ casualty list of 38 dead and 60 wounded.

Neither Canadian gold miner Semafo <SMF.TO> nor the Burkinabe authorities have confirmed how many people were in the convoy when it was ambushed on a road leading to the company’s Boungou mine in eastern Burkina Faso.

Neither responded to queries on Friday.

Panicked workers tried to flee the buses during the attack, then desperately scrambled back onboard away from gunmen in the bush, said another wounded survivor, Bakary Sanou.

“People were trying to go back into the buses. I tried to run away into the bush, and saw that they (the attackers) went back onto the buses, opened the doors and tried to kill everyone,” said Sanou, an oversize bandage on his right foot. A mobile phone lay charging next to him on rumpled pink sheets.

IDENTIFYING VICTIMS

Distraught and angry relatives gathered outside the morgue of the Bogodogo District Hospital in Ouagadougou, begging authorities to let them view the bodies.

“I understand the coroner has to carry out their work on the bodies, but they should identify them too,” one man, Ismail Roamba, told Reuters. “The government should allow at least one family member to go and identify a body.”

Public prosecutor Harouna Yoda said the government had opened an investigation into the attack.

It was still unclear who carried out Wednesday’s ambush.

A homegrown, three-year-old insurgency has plunged parts of Burkina Faso into bloodshed, amplified by a spillover of Islamist militant violence and criminality from its chaotic northern neighbor Mali.

In 2016, an Islamist attack on a hotel and restaurant in the capital killed 30 people. A similar assault the next year killed 19 people. In 2018, militants hit the French Embassy and the army headquarters in Ouagadougou, killing 16.

The Boungou mine is located in Burkina Faso’s Eastern region about 355 km (220 miles) from Ouagadougou. Semafo has said the mine site is secured, but it has suspended operations there.

(Additional reporting by David Lewis and Edward McAllister; Writing by Anna Pujol-Mazzini and Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Mark Heinrich)

Cartel gunmen terrorize Mexican city, free El Chapo’s son

Cartel gunmen terrorize Mexican city, free El Chapo’s son
By Dave Graham and Lizbeth Diaz

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Heavily armed fighters surrounded security forces in a Mexican city on Thursday and made them free one of drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s sons, after his capture triggered gunbattles and a prison break that sent civilians scurrying for cover.

Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said a patrol by National Guard militarized police first came under attack from within a house in the city of Culiacan, 1,235 km (770 miles) northwest of Mexico City.

After entering the house, they found four men, including Ovidio Guzman, who is accused of drug trafficking in the United States.

The patrol was quickly outmatched by cartel gunmen, however, and it was withdrawn to prevent lives being lost, the government said. Simultaneously, fighters swarmed through the city, battling police and soldiers in broad daylight. They torched vehicles and left at least one gas station ablaze.

“The decision was taken to retreat from the house, without Guzman, to try to avoid more violence in the area and preserve the lives of our personnel and recover calm in the city,” Durazo told Reuters.

The reaction to Guzman’s capture was on a scale rarely seen during Mexico’s long drug war, even after his more famous father’s arrests. The chaos was continuing as night fell.

A large group of inmates escaped from the city prison. Residents cowered in shopping centers and supermarkets as gunfire roared. Black plumes of smoke rose across the skyline.

Families with young children left their cars and lay flat in the road. Bullets cracked up ahead. “Dad, can we get up now?” a small boy said to his father in a video posted on Twitter.

“No, stay there on the floor,” the man replied, his voice trembling.

Cristobal Castaneda, head of security in Sinaloa, told the Televisa network that two people had been killed and 21 injured, according to preliminary information. He said police had come under attack when they approached roadblocks manned by gunmen. He advised residents not to leave their homes.

It was not immediately clear if members of the patrol were harmed in the standoff. Reuters TV showed scenes of at least three bodies lying next to cars on the street.

WARNED OF REPRISALS

The chaos in Culiacan, long a stronghold for the Guzmans’ Sinaloa cartel, will increase pressure on President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office in December promising to pacify a country weary after more than a decade of drug-war fighting. Murders this year are set to be at a record high.

Thursday’s events follow the massacre of more than a dozen police in western Mexico earlier this week, and the killing of 14 suspected gangsters by the army a day later.

Falko Ernst, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group in Mexico, said the release of Ovidio Guzman set “a dangerous precedent” and sent a message that the state itself, including the army, could be blackmailed and was not in control.

Presumed cartel members apparently intercepted a radio frequency used by security forces, one video showed, warning of reprisals against soldiers if Guzman was not freed.

A state police spokesman confirmed to Reuters that several prisoners escaped from a prison during the chaos. Video footage showed a group of at least 20 prisoners running in the streets. It was not immediately clear how many had escaped.

“They are freeing them,” a panicked woman said in the video apparently filmed from an tall building. “No we can’t go outside!” she said as other voices debated making a dash for their car.

In another video, a man driving repeatedly shouted: “There is a big gunfight,” before taking a sharp turn and leaving his car at a gas station to take cover. His voice then became inaudible because of the rattling roar of automatic gunfire.

‘El Chapo’ Guzman led the Sinaloa cartel for decades, escaping from prison twice before being arrested and extradited to the United States. He was found guilty in a U.S. court in February of smuggling tons of drugs and sentenced to life in prison.

He is believed to have about 12 children including Ovidio. The U.S. Department of Justice unveiled an indictment against Ovidio and another of the brothers in February, charging them with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana in the United States.

The indictment gave Ovidio’s age as 28, and said he had been involved in trafficking conspiracies since he was a teenager.

Jose Luis Gonzalez Meza, a lawyer for the Guzmans, told news network Milenio that Ovidio had been in touch with the family and said he was free.

(Additional reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher; Writing and additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Inside Saudi Arabia’s response to a raid on the heart of the oil kingdom

By Rania El Gamal, Stephen Kalin and Marwa Rashad

KHURAIS, Saudi Arabia(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s newly appointed energy minister was in London when he learned in the middle of the night of the largest-ever attack on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure.

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, a veteran oil official and senior member of the Al Saud ruling family, hurried back to the kingdom, flying by private jet to Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran to assess the damage and manage the fallout from the attack on the world’s largest oil exporter, three sources close to the matter said. Officials at state-run oil company Saudi Aramco, meanwhile, gathered in what was referred to internally as the “emergency management room” at the company’s headquarters.

Interviews with at least a dozen Gulf and Western officials provide the most detailed account to date of the response by Saudi officials and state oil company Aramco to the most destructive strike on Saudi Arabia since it opened an offensive in Yemen more than four years ago. The attack knocked out more than half the kingdom’s oil production, or almost 6 percent of global oil output.

Saudi Arabia has said Iran was responsible, an assessment that U.S. officials share.

Iranian officials were unavailable to comment but Iran has denied involvement.

Yemen’s Houthi movement, an ally of Iran battling a Western-backed, Saudi-led coalition has claimed responsibility. But Gulf diplomats and regional officials say they are skeptical of the claim given the sophistication of the attacks.

The Saudi energy ministry declined to comment on its response to the attacks. The government communications office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The attacks place pressure on both U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who have worked closely together to contain Iran’s growing regional influence. Both nations have stressed the need for caution.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has described the attacks as “an act of war” against Saudi Arabia, though Trump says there are options short of war. Iran has warned that any U.S. or Saudi military strike against the country would bring “all-out war.”

(Graphics on ‘Strikes on Saudi oil disrupt global supply’ – https://tmsnrt.rs/302z0Hm)

MISSILES AND DRONES

Shortly after 3:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, 25 drones and low-flying missiles struck two of Saudi Arabia’s largest oil facilities located in the east of the kingdom, according to Saudi officials.

Amin Nasser, the chief executive of state-run Saudi Aramco, which owns the two plants, rushed to Aramco’s emergency-response room at the company’s headquarters in the oil-producing Eastern Province, where he was joined by other senior managers, according to several people briefed on the matter. There was a sense of shock at the scale of the damage, some of the people said.

By the time Aramco’s team was dealing with the fires at the first site in Khurais, where more than 200 people were at the time, strikes were still hitting the facility, according to the company. More than a hundred contractors were immediately evacuated.

A Saudi Aramco spokesman declined to comment on questions from Reuters about the company and the CEO’s response to the attacks.

Saudi officials believed Iran was responsible because the intensity of the attack was beyond the capability of the Houthi, but they wanted to gather evidence before going public with the claims, according to Gulf diplomats and regional officials.

Saudi officials also spoke to their allies, in some instances requesting assistance with experts to help with the investigation and help in strengthening air defenses. On Saturday, Prince Mohammed provided Trump an update by phone, according to a U.S. official. Trump offered “his support for Saudi Arabia’s self-defense,” according to the White House readout of the call.

U.S. officials also quickly came to believe that the attack did not come from Yemen and that Iran was responsible, according to U.S. officials who briefed reporters. The Houthi had not struck that distance before or in such a “precise and coordinated fashion,” said a senior administration official.

(Graphics on ‘Iran and Saudi Arabia are locked in a battle for regional supremacy, fighting proxy wars’ – https://tmsnrt.rs/31rShzd)

“PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES”

By midday Saturday in Saudi Arabia, Nasser and other senior company Aramco executives were headed to the damaged plants, first to Khurais and then to Abqaiq, one of the sources briefed on the matter said.

That night, Nasser was joined at Abqaiq, the world’s biggest oil processing facility, by Prince Abdulaziz and Aramco’s new chairman Yassir al-Rumayyan, according to sources and pictures released by the state news agency.

Aramco, which runs a variety of large projects in the kingdom, deployed more than 5,000 contractors and pulled employees from other projects to work around the clock to bring production back, according to Nasser’s public comments and one of the sources briefed on the matter.

Initial assessments were that the damage was significant and that bringing full production back online could take weeks or even months, said Saudi officials and industry sources who visited the sites or were briefed on the attacks.

Saudi oil officials were scrambling to produce a report on the extent damage for the kingdom’s top leadership, including King Salman, the energy minister’s father, according two of the sources briefed on the matter. But engineers needed 48 more hours for a final assessment, the people said.

Crude markets would begin trading again in two days and Saudi Arabia was under pressure to reassure buyers that oil supplies will not be disrupted.

“Imagine if this (production) didn’t come back on time the whole global security of supply is going to be impacted,” Nasser told reporters earlier this week. “We have a lot of projects in the kingdom… so we have all of the workforce that’s needed to rebuild, reconstruct and put it back,” he said.

By Tuesday, the kingdom had managed to restore full supplies to customers by drawing oil from their massive oil inventories. The company also announced production would return sooner than expected – by the end of the month. Aramco had emerged “like a phoenix from the ashes,” said Prince Abdulaziz in remarks to news media that night in Red Sea city of Jeddah.

The news restored some confidence, prompting a fall in oil prices that had jumped on Monday.

ATTACK EVIDENCE

The Saudis continued to analyze the attack debris. That included aerial weaponry that missed their targets and was recovered just to the north, according to U.S. officials.

The United States dispatched to Saudi Arabia forensic specialists to assist in the effort; France said it was also sending investigative experts.

On Wednesday, Saudi Arabian officials publicly accused Iran of involvement. At a news conference, a defense ministry official displayed drone and missile debris it said was undeniable evidence of Iranian aggression and identified the drones as Iranian Delta Wing unmanned aerial vehicles.

“The attack was launched from the north and unquestionably sponsored by Iran,” said the official, Colonel Turki al-Malki.

U.S. officials fingered southwest Iran as the staging ground, an assessment based at least in part on still-classified imagery showing Iran appearing to prepare an aerial strike, according to two U.S. officials.

On Thursday, the United States was considering sending anti-missile batteries, drones and more fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, U.S. officials said.

“Frankly there’s just not enough defense capability in the country, if you could be hit from multiple directions,” one U.S. official told Reuters.

It is possible the attacks were launched from more than one location, a Western security source said. “The exact launch location is important as it determines the response and there does have to be a response,” the person said.

On Friday, repair work to the oil plants was ongoing. At the Khurais facility, parts of the facility were visibly burnt and pipes melted. During a tour of the site organized by the company, Fahad Abdulkarim, general manager for Aramco’s southern area oil operations, told reporters that the company is shipping equipment from the United States and Europe to help repair the damage.

(Marwa Washad reporting from Jeddah. Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Guy Faulconbridge in London, and Roberta Rampton, Steve Holland and Phil Stewart in Washington.; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Cassell Bryan-Low and Jason Szep)

Trump orders more Iran curbs, Saudi shows attack evidence

By Stephen Kalin and Parisa Hafezi

JEDDAH/DUBAI (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he ordered a major increase in sanctions on Iran as Saudi Arabia displayed remnants of drones and missiles it said Tehran used in a crippling weekend attack on its oil facilities.

Trump gave no explanation in a brief Twitter posting announcing the order, but the initiative follows repeated U.S. assertions that the Islamic Republic was behind Saturday’s attack on the kingdom, a close U.S. ally.

“I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase sanctions on the country of Iran!,” he wrote.

Iran, however, again denied involvement in the Sept. 14 raids, which hit the world’s biggest crude processing facility and initially knocked out half of Saudi production.

“They want to impose maximum … pressure on Iran through slander,” Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said.

“We don’t want conflict in the region … Who started the conflict?” he added, blaming Washington and its Gulf allies for the war in Yemen.

Yemen’s Houthi movement, an ally of Iran battling a Western-backed, Saudi-led coalition for more than four years, has claimed responsibility and said it used drones to assault state oil company Aramco’s sites.

However, the Saudi Defense Ministry held a news conference, displaying drone and missile debris it said was “undeniable” evidence of Iranian aggression. A total of 25 drones and missiles were used in the attacks launched from Iran not Yemen, the ministry spokesman added.

Saturday’s attack exposed the vulnerability of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure and threw down a gauntlet to the United States, which wants to curb Tehran’s influence in the region.

Proof of Iranian responsibility could pressure Riyadh and Washington into a response, though both nations were stressing the need for caution.

Trump has said he does not want war and is coordinating with Gulf and European states.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the hit on the world’s biggest crude exporter was a “real test of the global will” to confront subversion of the international order.

His envoy to London, Prince Khalid bin Bander, told the BBC the attack was “almost certainly” Iranian-backed, however: “We’re trying not to react too quickly because the last thing we need is more conflict in the region.”

“COMPELLING EVIDENCE”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was to meet Prince Mohammed in Jeddah on Wednesday to discuss the crisis before heading to the United Arab Emirates.

U.N. officials monitoring sanctions on Iran and Yemen were also heading to Saudi Arabia to investigate.

France, which is trying to salvage an international nuclear deal with Iran that Washington quit last year, said it wanted to establish the facts before reacting.

A U.S. official told Reuters the strikes originated in southwestern Iran. Three officials said they involved cruise missiles and drones, indicating a higher degree of complexity and sophistication than initially thought.

The officials did not provide evidence or explain what U.S. intelligence they were using for evaluating the attack, which cut 5% of global production.

Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday the 5.7 million barrels per day of output lost would be fully restored by the end of the month.

Oil prices fell after the Saudi reassurances, having surged more than 20% at one point on Monday – the biggest intra-day jump since the 1990-91 Gulf War. [O/R]

Saudi Arabia’s finance minister told Reuters on Wednesday the attack had no impact on revenues and Aramco was continuing to supply markets without interruption.

U.S. efforts to bring about a U.N. Security Council response look unlikely to succeed as Russia and China have veto powers and are expected to shield Iran.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has offered to sell Riyadh defense systems, called for a “thorough and impartial” probe during a phone call with Prince Mohammed.

The assault exposed serious gaps in Saudi air defense despite billions of dollars spent on Western military hardware and repeated attacks on vital assets during its four-and-a-half year foray into the Yemen war.

“The attack is like Sept. 11th for Saudi Arabia, it is a game changer,” said one Saudi security analyst.

IRAN-U.S. CONFLICT

Already frayed U.S.-Iran ties deteriorated further when Trump quit the nuclear pact and reimposed sanctions, severely hurting the Iranian economy. Iran has ruled out talks with Washington unless it returns to the pact.

Trump said he is not looking to meet Rouhani during a U.N. event in New York this month. Rouhani and his foreign minister may not attend the General Assembly at all unless U.S. visas are issued in the coming hours, state media reported Wednesday.

Washington and its Gulf allies want Iran to stop supporting regional proxies, including in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon.

Despite years of air strikes against them, the Houthi movement boasts drones and missiles able to reach deep into Saudi Arabia, the result of an arms race since the Western-backed coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015.

Iran’s clerical rulers support the Houthis, who ousted Yemen’s internationally recognized government from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014. But Tehran denies it actively supports them with military and financial support.

Iran maintains the largest ballistic and cruise missile capabilities in the Middle East that could overwhelm virtually any Saudi missile defense system, according to think-tank CSIS, given the geographic proximity of Tehran and its proxy forces.

But even more limited strikes have proved too much for Saudi Arabia, including recent ones claimed by the Houthis on a civilian airport, oil pumping stations and the Shaybah oilfield.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai and Stephen Kalin in Jeddah; Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in London, Michelle Nichols in New York, Rania El Gamal, Davide Barbuscia and Marwa Rashad in Riyadh, Asma Alsharif and Sylvia Westall in Dubai, Alaa Swilam and Hisham El Saba in Cairo, Maria Kiselyova in Moscow; Tim Kelly in Tokyo, John Irish and Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris, Phil Stewart and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and William Maclean)