US believes Iran encouraged tanker attacks: US sources
US officials believe Iran encouraged Houthi militants or
Iraq-based Shiite militias to carry out Sunday’s attacks on four tankers near
the Strait of Hormuz, two US government sources said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity and who are
familiar with US national security assessments, said they viewed the attacks as
a serious provocation by Iran which posed a significant threat to shipping.
Iran rejects the allegation of Iranian involvement and
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that “extremist
individuals” in the US government were pursuing dangerous policies. No one has
claimed responsibility for the tanker attacks.
One source said US government experts believe Iran gave its
“blessing” to the operations, which hit two Saudi crude oil tankers, a
UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge and a Norwegian-registered oil products tanker
near Fujairah, one of the world’s largest bunkering hubs just outside the
Strait of Hormuz.
This source said the United States believes the Iranian role
has been one of actively encouraging militants to undertake such actions and
went beyond simply dropping hints. However, the source indicated the United
States does not now have evidence that Iranian personnel played any direct
operational role.
A fifth of the oil consumed in the world passes through the
Strait of Hormuz en route from Gulf crude producers to much of the globe.
A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis for four
years in Yemen to try to restore the internationally recognized government in a
conflict widely seen as a Saudi-Iran proxy war.
The attacks occurred against a background of tensions
between the United States and Iran over Iranian nuclear capabilities, its
missile program and its support for proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
Washington ordered the departure of non-emergency American employees from its
diplomatic missions in Iraq on Wednesday in another apparent show of concern
about what it describes as threats from Iran.
On Tuesday, a US official had said US national security
agencies believed proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have attacked
four tankers rather than Iranian forces themselves.
While that official had said perpetrators might include
Houthi rebels or Iraq-based Shiite militias, the official said Washington did
not have hard evidence on who struck the vessels and did not go so far as to
say Iran had encouraged them to act.