Houthis attack oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, biggest oil refinery in the world, with drones - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Talk about what you've seen in the news today.

Moderator: PoFo Today's News Mods

#15034303
Saudi Arabia has declared that Iran is directly responsible for the drone attacks on an oil field and refinery at the weekend, with satellite photos revealing how precise the strikes were.

Colonel Turki al-Malki said initial investigations show the strikes were not launched from Yemen, as the Iran-backed Houthi rebels there have claimed, and were carried out using weapons manufactured by Tehran.

He did not say what evidence Saudi Arabia has uncovered directly linking Iran to the strikes, but promised it would be made public when the probe has finished.

Iran fired cruise missiles at Saudi oil facility
ABC NEWS
Published on Sep 16, 2019

President Donald Trump warned the U.S. was "locked and loaded" to respond to the attack, waiting for verification on who was responsible and for word from Saudi Arabia on how to proceed.
#15034342
Godstud wrote:Saudi Arabia. responsible for 9/11. America's greatest ally.

It was on 9/14/2019.

Godstud wrote:Drone first, and now cruise missile?

Yes, that is the latest news.

Missiles and drones that hit Saudi oil fields: Made in Iran, but fired by whom?

The US government has stopped short of officially blaming Iran for launching drones and cruise missiles against Saudi Arabian oil production facilities.

While the mix of weapons involved and where they came from is still in dispute, this would hardly be the first time the Houthi "anti-Saudi resistance militia" used cruise missiles or drones for an attack on Saudi civilian targets. For the last four years, the Houthi forces in Yemen have used a mixture of missiles and drones seized from the Yemeni military and—based on forensic evidence from downed missiles and drones—provided by Iran.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... d-by-whom/
#15034343
So what? USA provided tons of military hardware to anyone who can pay. Just because someone bought Iran weapons doesn't make Iran responsible. It's simply an excuse to start a war, like USA often does.

Saudi Arabia deserves everything it gets from what it's done in Yemen.

UN again blacklists Saudi-led forces for Yemen child killings
Coalition blacklisted for third year over killing and wounding of 729 children but critics say measure is not enough.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/ ... 48880.html

Recently, as you can see....


Fuck Saudi Arabia, and anyone who defends the cur.
#15034348
Godstud wrote:So what? USA provided tons of military hardware to anyone who can pay. Just because someone bought Iran weapons doesn't make Iran responsible. It's simply an excuse to start a war, like USA often does.

Saudi Arabia deserves everything it gets from what it's done in Yemen.

UN again blacklists Saudi-led forces for Yemen child killings
Coalition blacklisted for third year over killing and wounding of 729 children but critics say measure is not enough.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/ ... 48880.html

Recently, as you can see....

Fuck Saudi Arabia, and anyone who defends the cur.

The UN has done a lot of crazy things.
Fuck Iran and Yemen's Houthi rebels.
#15034358
Godstud wrote:Saudi Arabia is in Yemen, bombing them. That's Yemen's fault, I suppose that Saudi's are killing kids, right?

It is the fault of Yemen's Houthi rebels with the backing by Iran.

Godstud wrote:It figures you'd back the child-murderers.

I don't back child murderers. In war some children my get killed. That is called collateral damage, not murder.
#15034373
Godstud wrote:So what? USA provided tons of military hardware to anyone who can pay. Just because someone bought Iran weapons doesn't make Iran responsible. It's simply an excuse to start a war, like USA often does.

Saudi Arabia deserves everything it gets from what it's done in Yemen.

UN again blacklists Saudi-led forces for Yemen child killings
Coalition blacklisted for third year over killing and wounding of 729 children but critics say measure is not enough.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/ ... 48880.html

Recently, as you can see....


Fuck Saudi Arabia, and anyone who defends the cur.


Absolutely. I agree with your whole post.

However, two wrongs never make a right, and there are a lot of 'anti-imperialists' who might jump on the Iran bandwagon (not referring to anyone on this board specifically), so we should be mindful that Iran is also responsible for a lot of killing in Yemen.

And despite the fact that they (the IRGC) overthrew an oppressive monarch/dictatorship, they are in the end of the day, still very much an Islamic theocratic authoritarian state.

(None of that justifies American invasion or sanctioning of Iran, but it's good to be careful not to start justifying the stuff that countries like Iran do. I'm sure if we had our way we'd stop all of them from committing any violent actions anywhere in the world).
#15034402
Atlantis wrote:I don't see why Qatar would take that risk.

I'm not exactly aware of Qatar's situation there, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had assisted Iran like that to take revenge on the Saudis.

Wikipedia wrote:2017–2019 Qatar diplomatic crisis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 2017–2019 Qatar diplomatic crisis began in June 2017, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, the Maldives, Mauritania, Senegal, Djibouti, the Comoros, Jordan, the Tobruk-based Libyan government, and the Hadi-led Yemeni government severed diplomatic relations with Qatar and banned Qatari airplanes and ships from utilising their airspace and sea routes along with Saudi Arabia blocking the only land crossing.

The Saudi-led coalition cited Qatar's alleged support for terrorism as the main reason for their actions, insisting that Qatar has violated a 2014 agreement with the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Saudi Arabia and other countries have criticized Al Jazeera and Qatar's relations with Iran. Qatar acknowledges that it has provided assistance to some Islamist groups (such as the Muslim Brotherhood), but denies aiding militant groups linked to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Qatar also claims that it has assisted the United States in the War on Terror and the ongoing military intervention against ISIL.

Initial supply disruptions were mitigated by additional imports from Iran and Turkey, and Qatar did not agree to any of the Saudi-led coalition's demands. The demands included reducing diplomatic relations with Iran, stopping military coordination with Turkey, and closing Al-Jazeera.

On 27 July 2017, Qatari foreign minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told reporters that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were showing "stubbornness" to Qatar and had not taken any steps to solve the crisis. Al Thani added that the Security Council, the General Assembly and "all the United Nations mechanisms" could play a role in resolving the situation. On 24 August 2017, Qatar announced that they would restore full diplomatic relations with Iran.

Atlantis wrote:The drones (or missiles?) could just as easily have been launched from a ship.

I wonder if the Persian Gulf is monitored more heavily than Qatar recently and such an attack launched from a (war)ship could have taken the Saudis by surprise.

I'm not sure about Qatar's role, but the attack certainly didn't come from Yemen, I'd rather suspect Qatar then.
#15034442


US defense failure… Why Washington has to blame Iran over Saudi attacks
The devastating blitz on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry has led to a flurry of accusations from US officials blaming Iran. The reason for the finger-pointing is simple: Washington’s spectacular failure to protect its Saudi ally.

The Trump administration needs to scapegoat Iran for the latest military assault on Saudi Arabia because to acknowledge that the Houthi rebels mounted such an audacious assault on the oil kingdom’s heartland would be an admission of American inadequacy.

Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars in recent years purchasing US Patriot missile defense systems and supposedly cutting-edge radar technology from the Pentagon. If the Yemeni rebels can fly combat drones up to 1,000 kilometers into Saudi territory and knock out the linchpin production sites in the kingdom’s oil industry, then that should be a matter of huge embarrassment for US “protectors.”

American defense of Saudi Arabia is germane to their historical relationship. Saudi oil exports nominated in dollars for trade – the biggest on the planet – are vital for maintaining the petrodollar global market, which is in turn crucial for American economic power. In return, the US is obligated to be a protector of the Saudi monarchy, which comes with the lucrative added benefit of selling the kingdom weapons worth billions of dollars every year.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Saudi Arabia has the world’s third biggest military budget, behind the US and China. With an annual spend of around $68 billion, it is the world’s number one in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (8.8 per cent). Most of the Saudi arms are sourced from the US, with Patriot missile systems in particular being a recent big-ticket item.

Yet for all that financial largesse and the finest American military technology, the oil kingdom just witnessed a potentially crippling wave of air assaults on its vital oil industry. Saudi oil production at its mammoth refinery complex at Abqaiq, 205 miles (330 kms) east of the capital Riyadh, was down 50 per cent after it was engulfed by flames following air strikes. One of the Saudi’s biggest oilfields, at Khurais, also in the Eastern Province, was also partially closed.

There are credible reports that the damage is much more serious than the Saudi officials are conceding. These key industrial sites may take weeks to repair.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got it half right when he claimed, “Iran launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply”.

Yes, it is unprecedented. But Pompeo and other US officials have most likely got it wrong about blaming Iran.

Some Trump administration officials told US media that “cruise missiles” were responsible for the giant fireballs seen over the Saudi oil facilities. One was quoted anonymously as saying: “There’s no doubt that Iran is responsible for this… there’s no escaping it. There is no other candidate.”

In a hurried effort to substantiate accusations against Iran, satellite images were released which show what appears to be the aftermath of the air strike on the Abqaiq refinery complex. US officials claim the location of the explosions indicate the weapons originated not from Yemen to the south, but from either Iran or Iraq.

Even the normally dutiful New York Times expressed doubt about that claim, commenting in its report: “The satellite photographs released on Sunday did not appear as clear cut as officials suggested, with some appearing to show damage on the western side of facilities, not from the direction of Iran or Iraq.”

The accusations made by Pompeo and others are assertions in place of substantiated claims.

It is noteworthy that President Donald Trump refrained from openly blaming Iran by name, merely hinting at the possibility. If Pompeo is so adamant in fingering Iran, why didn’t Trump? Also, the president made a telling remark when he said he was “waiting for verification” from Saudi Arabia “as to who they believe was the cause of the attack.” Again, if US officials are explicitly accusing Iran then why is Trump saying he wants “verification” from the Saudis?

For its part, Iran has flatly dismissed the allegations that it had any involvement, saying that statements by Pompeo were “blind” and tantamount to setting up a conflict.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi also rejected claims that his country’s territory might have been used by pro-Iranian Shia militants to launch the air strikes.

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have issued unambiguous statements claiming responsibility for the air raids on the Saudi oil installations. They were specific that the weapons were drones, not missiles, adding with details that 10 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were deployed.

Notably too, most US media reported initially that the attacks were by drones flown from Yemen. Associated Press reported a level of sophistication in the attacks whereby drones were used first to disable the US Patriot radar systems before other UAVs proceeded to execute the air strikes.

It therefore seems that US officials are attempting to switch the story by blaming Iran. It is reckless scapegoating because the logical consequence could elicit a military attack against Iran, in which event Tehran has warned it is ready for war.

The rationale for blaming Iran is that the Yemeni rebels (which Iran supports politically) are just not capable of using drones with such dramatic success against the Saudi oil industry. The culprit must be Iran, so the rationale goes. This is a follow-on from alleged sabotage by Iran against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf earlier this summer.

However, a timeline shows that the Houthis are more than capable of launching ever-more powerful ballistic missiles and deeper penetrating drones into Saudi territory. The rebels have been using drones from the beginning of the war which the US-backed Saudi-UAE coalition launched on the southern Arabian country in March 2015.

Over the past four years, the Houthi aerial firepower has gradually improved. Earlier, the Saudis, with American defense systems, were able to intercept drones and missiles from Yemen. But over the last year, the rebels have increased their success rate for hitting targets in the Saudi interior, including the capital Riyadh.

In May this year, Houthi drones hit Saudi Arabia’s crucial east-west pipeline. Then in August, drones and ballistic missiles were reported to have struck the Shaybah oil field near the border with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as the Dammam exporting complex in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

The Yemenis claim they are taking the war to Saudi Arabia and the UAE after years of relentless air strikes on their homeland which have resulted in nearly 90,000 dead. A recent UN report censured the US, Britain and France for possible complicity in war crimes through their military support for the Saudi coalition.

There must be trepidation among the monarchs in Saudi Arabia and the UAE that the rebels from war-torn and starving Yemen are now coming after them with drones that could demolish their oil economies. What’s more, the much-vaunted American protector is not able to deliver on its strategic bargain, despite billions of dollars of Pentagon weaponry. That’s why Washington has to find an excuse by casting Iran as the villain.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/468935-saudi-o ... ne-attack/






#15034667
The Guardian wrote:Whatever Iran’s role in the Saudi attack, the regional status quo is unsustainable

Mahsa Rouhi

Biting sanctions after the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal could make Iran desperate enough to try to provoke Trump

Wed 18 Sep 2019 11.41 BSTLast modified on Wed 18 Sep 2019 20.15 BST

Image‘The attacks could show that, if Iran is prevented from exporting its own oil, it will disrupt the global oil
market in return.’ Smoke rising from the Abqaiq oil facility, Saudi Arabia. Photograph: AP


Saturday’s attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities at Abqaiq represent a potential tipping point in regional and international relations. Although many questions remain, and Iran has officially denied responsibility, the likelihood of its involvement at some level is high. Regardless of the precise details, there is already a range of serious geopolitical implications to consider.

If Tehran is responsible, this clearly demonstrates that Iran’s asymmetric military capabilities can pose a serious threat to the strategic interests of the west and its partners in the region. Oil-supply vulnerabilities are no longer limited to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for exports and a repeated flashpoint over the years. After all, with this strike on a land-based facility, Saudi oil production reportedly dropped by about 50%.

These dramatic effects align with the current Iranian strategy of signalling to the US and its allies that there can be no such thing as a limited strike against Iran, as some contemplate in Washington: in such a scenario, Iran would retaliate, inflict significant cost and potentially provoke an all-out war. The attacks could also represent a further following-through on the promise that if Iran is prevented from exporting its own oil, it will disrupt the global oil market in return. It initially restricted this activity to the Strait of Hormuz. The Abqaiq attacks go way beyond this, however, embodying a determination to show that the Saudis will not be allowed to plug the gap left by Iranian oil that has been taken off the market as a result of sanctions.

At this point, it should be clear that the regional status quo is simply not sustainable. Iran’s “strategic patience” over economic sanctions following the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, aimed at giving Europe the chance to provide Iran with the promised economic dividends of that pact, has not borne fruit. Europe has been unable to provide sufficient sanctions relief after more than a year of trying. Iran now sees its position deteriorating, with little diplomatic progress and a weakening economy – and it is not prepared to allow this to happen quietly.


President Trump has a number of issues to weigh as he considers his response. On the one hand, if he acts, he could potentially spark a war that he has said he doesn’t want, and which would violate his campaign promises. On the other hand, if he doesn’t act, he could be perceived as weak and ineffective. Either way, Tehran knows that Trump is under pressure because of the impending 2020 election campaign. It is likely using this moment to respond to US pressure with its own. Just as Washington has leveraged Tehran’s economic vulnerability on oil exports, Tehran is leveraging US vulnerabilities – specifically, the lack of appetite among its electorate for a new war in the Middle East.

At the moment Trump’s position is ambiguous, which presents its own dangers. He stated on Twitter that the US military machine was “locked and loaded” in response to the attack, but later suggested that diplomacy was still an option. He indicated that he had authorised the release of oil reserves in an effort to “keep markets well-supplied”, but the next day claimed that the US was no longer dependent on Middle Eastern oil, downplaying the impact of the Saudi attack on the world’s oil markets.

The conflicting messages are creating confusion for both allies and enemies. This matters because conflicting signals encourage miscalculations, particularly, in this case, on Tehran’s side. Iran has often pursued escalatory measures, but has generally held back from crossing a line that would provoke a wider military response. In the current context, those lines are blurred.

Hardliners will be cheering the success of the attack and welcoming the leverage it may bring. Moderates will be calling for caution because of the extremely high stakes. One can imagine an Iranian miscalculation and an incident that leads to the loss of American life. That could become a game-changer and lead to war.

In response to Saturday’s attack, some have urged the Trump administration to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, arguing that Tehran will only back down when confronted. Thus far, however, this has not been the case. Trump’s maximum-pressure strategy has had the opposite effect: the more pressure has been exerted, the riskier the strategies Tehran has pursued, simply because it is more desperate and feels it has less to lose.

A deal proposed by French president Emmanuel Macron involving the extension of a $15bn credit line to Iran could allow all sides to save face. Earlier this year, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, stated that: “There will be no war; nor will we negotiate with the US.” The French initiative represents a viable exit strategy for de-escalation and fits nicely within Khamenei’s parameters. It doesn’t require the US to provide economic relief, allowing the Europeans to take the lead.

Ultimately, whether or not Iran was behind the attack on Saudi Arabia, this situation presents a double-edged sword for Tehran: the effects of the attack and what it potentially signals about Iranian power could bolster Tehran’s position ahead of potential talks at the UN General Assembly. Alternatively, there is the risk of serious escalation – and at the very least, the possibility that the prospect of a return to the negotiating table, and ultimately relief from sanctions, will be undermined.

• Mahsa Rouhi is a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Programme

Good analysis, I guess, although I'd also mention Netanyahu's collapse in Israel as a factor determining the timing of the attack.
#15034673
Beren wrote:although I'd also mention Netanyahu's collapse in Israel as a factor determining the timing of the attack.

Yes indeed, but not by the Iranian security establishment, but the Israeli. We saw with the Lavon affair that the Jewish State was even prepared to murder its own women and children, so I'm quite sure they wouldn't have any conscience over destabilising the world energy market.
#15034692
Rich wrote:Yes indeed, but not by the Iranian security establishment, but the Israeli. We saw with the Lavon affair that the Jewish State was even prepared to murder its own women and children, so I'm quite sure they wouldn't have any conscience over destabilising the world energy market.



Thank you Rich and @Beren . Pofo just wouldn’t be the same if someone didn’t blame it on the Jews.

@skinster , why haven’t you blamed Mossad yet? Are you ill? And why haven’t the Illuminati, the Free Masons and the Alien Lizardmen from dimension X yet been mentioned?

It is so obvious who is responsible. How could anyone who wishes to preserve their conspiracy theorist credentials possibly claim the Houthi and their Iranian backers could have done this.

:D
#15034724
The graphene battery will change the world… nobody will need oil for car driving

The Mid-Eastern Nations can wage expensive wars in the last years of 100 Years oil boom or diversify the economy to prepare on a post-oil era

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung ... ging-speed


btw S-400 is useless against drones which fly several meters over the ground or air breathing rockets

Doesn't he have billions in Truth social (you pos[…]

Russia-Ukraine War 2022

The "Russian empire" story line is inve[…]

I (still) have a dream

Even with those millions though. I will not be ab[…]

Based on what? On simple economics. and in t[…]