Iran has foiled an attack on energy facilities in the southern part of the country, and accused its enemies of masterminding the plot in retaliation for the attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure in the middle of September.
Iran's enemies have come up with a plot to attack oil facilities in Asaluyeh in southern Iran during the recent violent protests against the fuel price hike in the Islamic Republic, Iran's Tasnim News Agency quoted Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), as saying on Sunday.
"The enemy intended to do what Yemen's Ansar Allah did to Saudi installation and take revenge," Radio Farda quoted Shamkhani as saying.
Iran claims that the Houthis in Yemen were responsible for the attack on Saudi Aramco's oil infrastructure on September 14, which cut 5 percent of global daily supply offline for weeks. The United States blames Iran for those attacks.
Iran's claim of a thwarted attack on oil infrastructure comes a few days after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said last week that Iran and its people had defeated the conspiracies of its enemies and claimed victory in the nationwide protests in the country following a massive fuel price hike.
Earlier this month, Iran raised by 50 percent gasoline prices-which are some of the cheapest in the world-and introduced limits on gasoline purchases to help needy households as U.S. sanctions cripple the economy.
Iran's economy has been severely struggling since the U.S. sanctions on its oil industry started last year to cut the Islamic Republic's oil export revenues-the main source of government income.
Iran's economy is in steep recession, and inflation exceeds 30 percent.
After the start of the protests against the fuel price hike, Iran shut down the Internet for a week. Access to the Internet started to return this Saturday, according to NetBlocks. According to the group, basic connectivity is returning, but access is being filtered and many users in Iran have restricted access to the outside world.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More
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