President of the US, Donald Trump, stated that Washington is ready to assist Saudi Arabia in any means once permitted. (Image via Mother Jones)

Trump: 'We are locked and loaded to avenge Saudi'

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Politics & Economic
International
Sep 16, 2019
1150
On Saturday (14/9) last week, a drone attack hit Saudi Arabia’s oil facility, Saudi Aramco, in Abqaiq, Eastern Saudi Arabia. The attack, stricken the world’s biggest oil facility, was claimed by the Houthi rebel group of Yemen. The Houthi claimed that they sent 10 drones to attack Saudi Arabia over its intervention in Yemen’s war.

However, the United States (US) did not buy it. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said that the US knew who the real culprit was and there was no evidence that Yemen led the attack by two of 10 drones. The US persisted that Iran was behind the war since the tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Besides, Pompeo stated the information that Iran often backs the Houthi’s actions.

The President of the US, Donald Trump, hit Twitter again to show his “support” for Saudi Arabia by stating that the US was ready to do whatever it would take to assist Saudi.

"Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" tweeted Trump on Sunday (15/9).

On the other hand, the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Abbas Mousavi, stated that Iran denied any involvement in the attack that caused a 5% cripple to the global oil reserve. On the behalf of Iran, Mousavi called the allegations as “unacceptable” and “baseless”.

A similar tone was also raised by Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Twitter, calling Pompeo out for his “max deceit”.

The oil facility in Abqaiq, known to be the world’s biggest, produces seven million barrels daily. In other words, it produces 7% of global output. Due to the incident, the facility reduced the production by 5.7 million or shut 5% of global output. Due to the reduce in BPD production, Saudi’s GDP is expected to go down by 1.2 – 1.4% until the restoration of the oil facility which is estimated to take a month.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/15/politics/trump-us-saudi-arabia-attack-iran-iraq/index.html

Politics , International , US , Iran , Saudi-Arabia , Oil , Drone , Terrorism