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UAE believes a state was behind tanker attacks Inquiry into oil tanker attacks stops short of blaming Iran
(about 3 hours later)
The United Arab Emirates has told UN members that a state was likely to be behind “sophisticated and coordinated” attacks on four tankers off its coast last month. An unidentified state actor has been blamed for attacks on four oil tankers in the Gulf last month, according to an inconclusive inquiry that stopped short of explicitly pointing the finger at Iran.
The attacks required expert navigation of fast boats and trained divers who likely placed limpet mines on the vessels under the waterline to incapacitate but not sink them, according to the preliminary findings of a joint investigation by the UAE, Norway and Saudi Arabia. The UAE along with Saudi Arabia and Norway presented the preliminary findings during a private briefing to members of the UN security council, which will also receive the final results of the inquiry and consider a possible response.
In a briefing document given to UN security council members, the three countries did not say who they believed was behind the attacks. Iran has been accused by the US of being responsible. The US has accused Iran of almost certainly being behind the attacks on the four oil tankers off the Emirati coast, but the brief report, while providing evidence of the sophistication of the attack, goes nowhere near identifying the culprit.
“While investigations are still ongoing, these facts are strong indications that the four attacks were part of a sophisticated and coordinated operation carried out by an actor with significant operational capacity, most likely a state actor,” the document said. The UAE may be waiting on whether other intelligence agencies can provide evidence that Iran directed surrogate groups, or possibly Houthi rebels, to carry out the attack.
The countries believe the attacks were the work of several teams of operatives who coordinated the timed detonation of all four explosive charges within an hour. The four vessels – two Saudi-flagged, a Norwegian-flagged and an Emirati-flagged – were damaged by explosions in UAE territorial waters, off the port of Fujairah.
The 12 May attacks targeted two Saudi tankers, an Emirati vessel and a Norwegian tanker, causing no casualties but fuelling tensions between the US and Iran. The UAE is convinced Iran was behind the attacks and that they were designed to send a clear message to the US and the Gulf States about its capacity to wreak havoc on oil shipping, including through the Strait of Hormuz.
The US national security adviser, John Bolton, said on 29 May that the attacks were the work of “naval mines almost certainly from Iran”. Tehran denied the accusations. Iran is battling the effects of US sanctions, including on its ability to export oil, the lifeblood of its economy.
A few days earlier, US Rear Admiral Michael Gilday accused Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards of being directly responsible for the attacks. The initial findings showed that it was “highly likely” that four limpet mines, which are magnetically attached to a ship’s hull under the waterline, were used in the attacks. The report said they had been placed by trained divers deployed from fast boats. The mines were placed soon after the ships were anchored.
While the briefing document did not mention Iran, a Saudi diplomat in New York laid the blame squarely on the country. “We believe that the responsibility for this action lies on the shoulders of Iran. We have no hesitation in making this statement,” said Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, the Saudi ambassador to the United Nations. The UAE believes the attacks required high-level intelligence in order to identify the four oil tankers as targets, one of which – a Saudi ship – was at the opposite end of the anchorage area at Fujairah from the three other tankers.
Donald Trump’s administration, acting on concerns of a potential attack by Iran on US interests, has deployed a further 1,500 troops to the Middle East, accelerated the movement of an aircraft carrier strike group to the region and sent bombers and additional Patriot missiles. The report also said that detailed knowledge of the ships’ designs was required to detonate the mines without sinking the tankers. The mines were sequenced to explode within an hour of each other.
The tanker attacks occurred off the UAE emirate of Fujairah, which lies just outside the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil and gas shipping route that separates the Gulf Arab states – allies of the US and Iran. Despite the ambiguous findings, Saudi Arabia continued to blame its arch-enemy, Iran. Tehran has denied involvement.
The UN briefing said the attacks endangered commercial navigation and the security of global energy supplies. The UAE, Norway and Saudi Arabia planned to share their findings with the London-based International Maritime Organization. “We believe the responsibility for this attack lies on the shoulders of Iran,” Saudi Arabia’s UN ambassador, Abdallah al-Mouallimi, said after the briefing.
In the weeks before the attacks, the Trump administration hardened its policy against Iran by fully reimposing sanctions on Iranian oil exports and designating the Revolutionary Guard corps as a foreign terrorist organisation. Saudi Arabia maintains that the attacks affect the safety of international navigation and the security of world oil supplies, requiring a response from the security council.
Trump reiterated this week that he wants to sit down with Iran’s leaders to negotiate a new deal, a year after Washington pulled out of an accord between Iran and global powers to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in return for lifting international sanctions. Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, said after the closed-door briefing that no evidence had been presented linking Iran to the attacks. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Safronkov said. “This investigation will be continued.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Tuesday that Tehran would not be “deceived” by Trump’s offer. Tehran reacted coolly to the findings, saying the UAE was determined to blame it as part of an effort to escalate the situation and press the US into a war with Iran.
In an attempt to calm tensions the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is due to visit Tehran next week as an unlikely mediator between the US and Iran. The German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, is also due to visit Tehran before Abe’s trip.
Germany remains a signatory to the nuclear deal signed in 2015 from which Donald Trump withdrew in May 2018.
Trump then pursued a policy of strong economic sanctions on Iran but he has dialled down his bellicose rhetoric in the last week, waiting to see if any of the mediators can find a basis for setting up direct talks between him and Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president. Iran will demand the lifting of economic sanctions as a precondition of talks.
On Friday Tehran again ruled out extending the nuclear deal to cover Iran’s ballistic missile programme, something the French president, Emmanuel Macron, suggested should be addressed this week.
France, Germany and the UK have stood by the nuclear deal but have largely failed to find a financial mechanism that protects European companies from the threat of US sanctions if they trade with Tehran. Iran’s oil exports have plummeted and there is a lively debate in Tehran on whether it is tenable to hold out against talks.
Iran is due to show reporters around its heavy water reactor in an attempt to show the implications of the measures it is taking to increase the level of enriched uranium. In response to the US economic pressure, Tehran says it is taking steps to extricate itself from the deal, with the next steps on uranium enrichment due in 30 days.
Germany and Japan are certain to urge Iran to hold back from taking any steps that could be interpreted as abandoning the deal.
United Arab EmiratesUnited Arab Emirates
United NationsUnited Nations
NorwayNorway
Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia
IranIran
US foreign policyUS foreign policy
Middle East and North AfricaMiddle East and North Africa
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