US to deploy more troops to Gulf
Iran’s Guard issues ‘battlefield’ warning
TEHRAN (AFP) — Any country that attacks Iran will become the “main battlefield,” the Revolutionary Guard warned Saturday after Washington ordered reinforcements to the Gulf following attacks on Saudi oil installations it blames on Tehran.
Tensions escalated between archfoes Iran and the United States after last weekend’s attacks on Saudi energy giant Aramco’s Abqaiq processing plant and Khurais oilfield halved the kingdom’s oil output.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for the strikes but the U.S. says it has concluded the attacks involved cruise missiles from Iran and amounted to “an act of war.”
Washington approved the deployment of troops to Saudi Arabia at “the kingdom’s request,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said, noting the forces would be “defensive in nature” and focused on air and missile defense.
But Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Major General Hossein Salami said Iran was “ready for any type of scenario.”
“Whoever wants their land to become the main battlefield, go ahead,” he told a news conference in Tehran.
“We will never allow any war to encroach upon Iran’s territory.
“We hope that they don’t make a strategic mistake,” he said, listing past U.S. military “adventures” against Iran.
In Riyadh, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, warned of “appropriate measures” once the source of the strikes on its oil facilities was confirmed.
“We have asked the United Nations to do an investigation and there are also other countries involved in the probe,” he told a press conference.
“We are sure the attack was not launched from Yemen, but from the north.
“When it (the probe) is completed, we will take the appropriate procedures to deal with this aggression,” said Jubeir, without specifying.
Iran’s Salami, for his part, was speaking at Tehran’s Islamic Revolution and Holy Defense museum during the unveiling of an exhibition of what Iran says are U.S. and other drones captured in its territory.
It featured a badly damaged drone with U.S. military markings said to be an RQ-4 Global Hawk that Iran downed in June, as well as an RQ-170 Sentinel captured in 2011 and still intact.
The Guards also displayed the domestically manufactured Khordad 3 air defense battery they say was used to shoot down the Global Hawk.
“What are your drones doing in our airspace? We will shoot them down, shoot anything that encroaches on our airspace,” said Salami.
His remarks came only days after the strikes on Saudi oil facilities claimed by Yemen’s Houthis, but the U.S. says it has concluded the attack involved cruise missiles from Iran and amounted to “an act of war.”
Saudi Arabia, which has been bogged down in a five-year war across its southern border in Yemen, has said Iran “unquestionably sponsored” the attacks.
The kingdom says the weapons used in the attacks were Iranian-made, but it has stopped short of directly blaming its regional rival.
“Sometimes they talk of military options,” Salami said, apparently referring to the Americans.
Yet he warned that “a limited aggression will not remain limited” as Iran was determined to respond and would “not rest until the aggressor’s collapse.”
The Guards’ aerospace commander said the U.S. ought to learn from its past failures and abandon its hostile rhetoric.
“We’ve stood tall for the past 40 years and if the enemy makes a mistake, it will certainly receive a crushing response,” Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh said.
Yemen rebels announce plan to halt attacks
SANAA (AFP) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels unexpectedly announced late Friday that they planned to halt all attacks on Saudi Arabia as part of a peace initiative to end their country’s devastating conflict, five years after they captured the capital Sanaa.
The announcement comes after a wave of drone strikes last weekend on Saudi oil installations knocked out half of the kingdom’s production and sent shock waves through energy markets.
The Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Riyadh’s ally Washington has condemned them as an “act of war,” placing the blame on Tehran and announcing new sanctions against the Islamic republic.
Mehdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthis’ supreme political council, announced in a speech marking the 2014 rebel seizure of Sanaa “the halt of all attacks against the territory of Saudi Arabia.”
He added that he hoped “the gesture would be answered by a stronger gesture” from the Saudis, according to the rebels’ Al-Masirah television channel.
“Pursuing war is not in anyone’s interest.”