Saudi displays arms, says drone attack sponsored by Iran

Agencies
September 19, 2019

Riyadh, Sept 19: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday displayed remnants of what it described as Iranian drones and cruise missiles used in an attack on Saudi oil facilities, saying they were "undeniable" evidence of Iranian aggression.

A total of 25 drones and missiles were launched at two oil plants in last weekend's strikes, including Iranian Delta Wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and "Ya Ali" cruise missiles, Defence Ministry spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said.

"The attack was launched from the north and unquestionably sponsored by Iran," he told a news conference. "The evidence ... that you have seen in front of you, makes this undeniable."

Saudi Arabia has claimed Iranian cruise missiles and drones were used to attack the kingdom's oil industry, showing journalists the remains of the weapons but stopping short of directly accusing Tehran of launching the assault. Iran denies being...

Authorities were still working to determine the exact launch point, Malki said, repeatedly declining to answer reporters questions about whether Iran actually carried out the attack.

Iran has denied any involvement in the assault that initially halved Saudi Arabia's oil production. An adviser to Iran's president tweeted that the press conference proved Saudi Arabia "knows nothing".

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which has been battling a Saudi-led military coalition, has claimed responsibility for the strikes.

On Wednesday, the group gave details of the type of drones it said were used in the Sept. 14 attack and warned that the United Arab Emirates was also in its sights.

Malki reiterated that the attack could not have come from Yemen, south of Saudi Arabia, and that the Houthis were "covering up" for Iran.

"The precision impact of the cruise missile indicate advanced capability beyond Iran proxy capacity," he said. "The targeting direction of the site indicate north to south direction of travel."

Eighteen drones and three missiles were launched at Abqaiq, home to the world's largest oil processing facility, but the missiles "fell short", Malki said. He said four missiles targeted Khurais, adding that the Ya Ali missiles have a range of 700 km and have been used by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

HOUTHIS THREATEN UAE

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saria reiterated that the movement had carried out the strike, saying it possessed new drones, powered by normal and jet engines, that could reach targets deep inside the "enemy".

The group had launched "Samad 3", "Qassef 3", jet-powered and other drones, including some carrying bombs, at the Saudi oil plants from three sites, he said in a televised speech.

"Today and for the first time we announce that we have dozens of targets within our range in the UAE, some are in Abu Dhabi and can be attacked at any time," he said.

The Western-backed, Sunni Muslim coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 against the Houthis after they ousted the internationally recognised government from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014.

The UAE in June scaled down its military presence in Yemen as Western allies pressed for an end to the ruinous war and as rising tensions with Iran raised fears of a war in the Gulf.

The Yemen conflict, seen as proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has killed tens of thousands and pushed millions to the brink of famine in the poorest Arabian Peninsula nation.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
January 22,2025

israeljenin.jpg

Israeli forces have killed at least eight Palestinians and injured 35 others in an attack on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, prompting Hamas to call for full mobilization of Palestinian youths against the occupation forces.

Palestinian media reported that the regime’s forces, backed by helicopters, raided Jenin and its refugee camp on Tuesday morning following several drone strikes.

The spokesman for the Palestinian security forces, Anwar Rajab, said in a statement that Israeli forces had "opened fire on civilians and security forces, resulting in injuries to several civilians and a number of security personnel, one of whom is in critical condition".

Israel’s military also confirmed that its soldiers, police and intelligence services had begun an operation, which Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, described as a "large and significant" operation to "eradicate terrorism.”

The attack on Jenin, where the regime’s forces have carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions over the past year, comes only two days after the start of a long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

Hamas said in a statement that people in Gaza “mourn the martyrs of Jenin who fell to the fire and bombardment of the occupation.”

The resistance group also urged Jenin’s “rebellious youth to mobilize and escalate confrontations with the Israeli army.”

Hamas said that the offensive “launched by the occupation in Jenin will fail, just like all its previous military operations against our people,” in Gaza.

The resistance group, which fought Israeli forces for 741 days in the besieged Gaza Strip, said its unprecedented operation against the occupied territories in October 2023, was “the final nail in the coffin of the collapsing Israeli regime.”

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
January 23,2025

USUNambasidor.jpg

President Donald Trump’s pick for the United States ambassador to the United Nations has become the latest administration nominee to voice the belief that Israel has “biblical” dominion over the occupied West Bank.

Elise Stefanik’s comment came during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. 

At the hearing, Elise Stefanik pledged to continue the US’s defense of Israel and advance Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda.

Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York, further said that she supports the claims made by the far right in Israel that Jews have the “biblical right” to take land from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Stefanik was definitive when asked if she shared the view of far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and former hawkish minister Itamar Ben Gvir that Israel has a “biblical right to the entire West Bank”.

She responded with one word, “Yes.”

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen further asked Stefanik whether she supported Palestinians' right to self-determination.

Stefanik refused to answer the question directly, saying, “I think they deserve more than the failures that they have suffered under the leadership of terrorists.”

Representative Stefanik was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 2014, the youngest woman elected to Congress at the time, at just 30 years old, and represented New York's 21st Congressional District.

She is known to be a staunch advocate of Israel supports its decision to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 

Stefanik is an advocate of claims by Zionists that that Israeli regime is justified in killing and ethnically cleansing Palestinian Christians and Muslims from their lands and homes.

She made headlines in 2024 by questioning the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about what she claimed was antisemitism on college campuses.

At the time, US students at university campuses all across the country were protesting Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

After positioning herself as a champion in the fight against the alleged rise in antisemitism, Rep. Stefanik began receiving large donations from Republican Jewish donors.

Stefanik has long been one of most ardent defenders Israeli occupation and annexation policy. 

In June 2024, US-Israeli billionaire Miriam Adelson reportedly donated $100 million to Trump for his presidential campaign in exchange for a promise to allow Israel to annex the West Bank. 

Israel's occupation and Jewish settlement of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 have brought the Palestinian Christian community to the brink of extinction.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
January 27,2025

gazanorth.jpg

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have begun returning to the northern part of the war-wracked Gaza Strip after a deal was reached between Hamas and Israel over exchange of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners.

It was announced that Hamas has agreed to release female Israeli captive Arbel Yehud and two others by Friday and provided information on the conditions of those set to be freed in the first phase of the ceasefire deal.

Gazans describe the return as historic, saying this is a victorious day.

The displaced Palestinians had been stranded behind Israeli military barriers despite the ceasefire.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was reached after 15 months of the regime's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

The implementation of the first phase of the deal began on January 19 and is expected to witness release of more than 1,890 Palestinians for 33 Zionists, who are among the 240 that Gaza’s resistance groups captured in October 2023.

The captives were ensnared during the historical Operation al-Aqsa Flood that served as an instance of retaliation against the regime’s decades-long campaign of Western-backed occupation and aggression against Palestinians.

The subsequent war claimed the lives of at least 47,306 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

The regime approved of the ceasefire after falling short of realizing any of its wartime objectives, including enabling the return of the captives, “eliminating” the Gazan resistance, and causing forced displacement of Gaza’s entire population to neighboring Egypt.

On Sunday, Hamas lambasted the regime for delaying the implementation of the ceasefire deal after Israeli forces killed and injured the Palestinians trying to return to the north.

Earlier, however, the regime said Palestinians could begin returning to the north on Monday after Gaza’s Islamic Jihad resistance movement confirmed that Israeli captive Arbel Yehud would be released before the next scheduled captive/prisoner swap.

Qatar, which had mediated ceasefire talks between Tel Aviv and Hamas alongside Egypt, had also announced that Hamas had agreed to release Yehud and two others by Friday and provided information on the conditions of those set to be freed in the first phase of implementation of the ceasefire deal.

Hamas calls it a victory

The movement, itself, issued a statement, describing the return of the displaced people as “a victory” for Palestinians and a defeat for the Israelis.

It said the scenes of the return of Palestinians to the areas from which they had been displaced, confirmed their connection to their land and once again proved “the failure of the occupation to achieve the aggressive goals of displacing people and breaking their steadfast will.”

The Islamic Jihad also described the return as a response to all those, who used to harbor the dream of enabling forced exodus of Palestinians.

“In an epic scene, hundreds of thousands of our displaced people are returning to northern Gaza, an area, which had been turned into a heap of rubble as a result of Zionists’ atrocities,” the group said.

It also described the Israeli regime’s conditioning the return of the displaced to Yehud’s release as an international move on the part of Tel Aviv to “destroy our people’s happiness in Gaza.”

“On this occasion, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement asserts that our people’s steadfastness would destroy whatever Zionist dream there is of stealing happiness from our hearts, and break the chains of the prison guards and occupiers.”

Former Israeli minister furious 

The Israeli regime’s former minister of so-called “national security,” Itamar Ben-Gvir, however, decried the return as a victory for Hamas.

“The opening of the Netzarim highway this morning and the entry of tens of thousands of Gazans into the northern Gaza Strip are images of Hamas’ victory and another humiliating part of the reckless deal. This is not what ‘complete victory’ looks like – this is what complete surrender looks like,” he wrote on X, former Twitter.

The Israeli soldiers did not fight and give their lives in the Gaza Strip to make these photos possible, he said, adding, “We must return to war – and destroy!”

Ben-Gvir resigned from his post earlier this month in protest at the ceasefire deal.

He has long been opposed to cessation of the brutal Israeli military onslaught and called for the regime to “occupy” Gaza.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.