US To Present Evidence On Iran’s Link To UAE Oil Tanker Attacks

The United States will present in coming days evidence of Iranian involvement in last month’s sabotage of four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including intelligence that Washington has received from Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, Israeli public broadcaster Kan reports.

Last month, Saudi Arabia said that two of its oil tankers were attacked by saboteurs near the UAE, while the UAE said that a total of four ships were attacked off its coast at the port of Fujairah, which is the world’s second-largest bunkering port.

According to the report in Israeli media, an Israeli navy official said that the attack on the oil tankers offshore the UAE was “a pretty impressive commando operation.”

The U.S. is set to present the intelligence and the evidence it has gathered on the attack to the United Nations Security Council this week, but senior U.S. officials have already pointed the finger at Iran as the ultimate perpetrator of the sabotage against the oil tankers.

Ten days ago, the Pentagon accused Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of sabotaging the four vessels at the Fujairah port.

“The attack against the shipping in Fujairah, we attribute it to the IRGC,” Vice Adm. Michael Gilday, Director of the Joint Staff, said on a briefing on Iran on May 24.

The attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf in May were caused by “naval mines almost certainly from Iran,” U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton said last week while on a visit to the UAE.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters last week that he had seen the evidence about the tanker attacks that Bolton would present to the United Nations this week.

“These were – these were efforts by the Iranians to raise the price of crude oil throughout the world,” Secretary Pompeo said.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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