 Trump says almost sure Iran behind Saudi attacks Washington (AFP) Sept 16, 2019 - US President Donald Trump said Monday that Iran was likely behind strikes on Saudi oil facilities, but that he wanted to be sure and he hoped to avoid war. "It is certainly looking that way at this moment," Trump told reporters when asked if he believes Tehran carried out the attack. The president said "we pretty much already know" and "certainly it would look to most like it was Iran" but that Washington still wanted more proof. "We want to find definitively who did this," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. "You're going to find out in great detail in the near future," he said. "We have the exact location of just about everything. "With all that being said, we'd certainly like to avoid" war, Trump said. "I don't want war with anybody but we're prepared more than anybody," he added. Trump said the United States would be talking to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and "many of the neighbors out there that we're very close friends with. "We're also talking to Europe," he said, "a lot of the countries that we're dealing with, whether it is France, Germany, etcetera, talking to different folks and figuring out what they think. "But I will tell you that was a very large attack and it could be met with an attack many, many times larger, very easily by our country," he said. Trump spoke to reporters shortly after US Defense Secretary Mike Esper said the US military is preparing a response to the attack on the Saudi oil facilities. After briefing Trump in the White House, Esper singled out Iran as undermining international order, without directly pinning blame on Tehran for the attack. Esper said he and the Pentagon leadership met with Trump in the wake of Saturday's attack, which analysts say appears to have involved drones and possibly cruise missiles launched from a nearby country. The Iran-supported Huthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack. But the Riyadh-led coalition fighting the Huthis said earlier Monday that the weapons were Iranian-made, and it remains unclear where they were launched from.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to sell Saudi Arabia its missile defence systems on Monday in the wake of the weekend attack on its oil facilities.
"We are ready to help Saudi Arabia so that she can protect her territory.
"She can do so in the same way that Iran has already done in buying the S-300 Russian missile system and the same way that Turkey has already done in buying the S-400 Russian missile system," Putin said at a press conference in Ankara, alongside the Turkish and Iranian leaders.
His comments come after the Kremlin warned against a hasty reaction to the strikes, which Washington has blamed on Iran.
But the attacks were initially claimed by Iran's Huthi rebel allies in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is bogged down in a five-year war.
Speaking alongside Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the attacks were an act of self-defence by Yemeni rebels.
"Yemen is the target of daily bombings... The people of Yemen have been forced to respond, they are only defending themselves," he said.
Huthi rebels threatened on Monday to carry out more strikes and urged foreigners to stay away.
On Monday, oil prices made their biggest jump since the Gulf War after President Donald Trump warned that the US was "locked and loaded" to respond to the attacks on the Saudi oil infrastructure.
NATO chief 'extremely concerned' after attacks on Saudi
Baghdad (AFP) Sept 16, 2019 -
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Monday he was "extremely concerned" about escalating tensions following strikes on Saudi oil facilities at the weekend, accusing Iran of destabilising the region.
Speaking to AFP in Baghdad, Stoltenberg's comments were his first on the strikes on two major Saudi oil facilities, which were claimed by Yemen's Huthi rebels but which both Washington and Riyadh have blamed on Tehran.
"We call on all parties to prevent any such attacks occurring again because that can have negative consequences for the whole region, and we are also extremely concerned about a risk of escalation," the secretary general said.
Stoltenberg, who said the alliance "strongly condemned" the attacks because of the destabilising effect on oil supplies, also had a message for Iraq's neighbour, Iran.
"We are concerned about what we see, especially from Iran. Iran is supporting different terrorist groups and being responsible for destabilising the whole region," he charged.
The strikes on Abqaiq -- the world's largest oil processing facility -- and the Khurais oil field in eastern Saudi Arabia have roiled global energy markets and sent prices spiking.
Huthi rebels said they carried out the attacks with 10 drones, but American media have reported that US officials had satellite images showing the attacks -- possibly with drones and cruise missiles -- had come from the north or northwest, rather than Yemen.
The Saudi-led coalition on Monday said its preliminary probe had found Huthi rebels were not responsible, while squarely pointing the finger at Iran for providing the weapons used in the attacks.
It said it was still investigating where the strikes had originated.
Iraq, home to several Iran-backed paramilitary factions, has been placed in an awkward situation amid rising tensions between its two main allies, Iran and the US.
Baghdad has denied the attacks were launched from its country, with Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi reiterating Iraq's aim to stay neutral in a call with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday.
According to the premier's office, Pompeo told Abdel Mahdi that the US had also found that Iraqi territory was not used in the attacks.
The US has declined to comment directly.
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