Don’s crude threat

US is ‘locked and loaded’ as it fingers Iran for oil attack

President Donald Trump says the United States is “locked and loaded” for a potential response to the drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, after a senior official in his administration said Iran was to blame.

“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!” Mr Trump said on Twitter.

He said he had also authorised the use of the US emergency oil stockpile to ensure stable supplies after the attack, which shut 5 per cent of world production.

Earlier senior US officials told reporters that evidence from the attack, which hit the world’s biggest oil-processing facility, indicated Iran was behind it, instead of the Yemeni Houthi group that had claimed responsibility.

They said the scope and precision of the drone attacks showed they were launched from a west-northwest direction rather than from Yemen to the south, where Houthi rebels were located.

US officials pointed to satellite imagery (pictured above) showing 19 points of impact on the oil facilities and said they would produce additional evidence in coming days to show Houthi claims of responsibility for the attacks were not credible. Saudi officials also indicated they had seen signs that cruise missiles were used in the attack.

“There’s no doubt that Iran is responsible for this. No matter how you slice it, there’s no escaping it. There’s no other candidate. Evidence points in no other direction than that Iran was responsible for this,” an American official said.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi dismissed the US allegation it was responsible as “pointless”.

A senior Revolutionary Guards commander warned that the Islamic Republic was ready for “full-fledged” war.

“All American bases and their aircraft carriers in a distance of up to 2000km around Iran are within the range of our missiles,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Commander Amirali Hajizadeh as saying.

Oil prices have surged on worries over global supply amid the soaring tensions. State oil giant Saudi Aramco said the attack cut output by 5.7 million barrels per day.