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Iran Plotted Saudi Oil Field Attack as Revenge for U.S. Sanctions, Nuclear Deal Pullout, Report Says

“It is time to take out our swords and teach them a lesson,” the Revolutionary Guard Corps head reportedly said at the Tehran planning event.

Iran was behind the September attacks against Saudi Arabia’s oil nerve center in Abqaiq and carried out the operation to punish the Trump administration for its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and its ratcheting up of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, according to an exclusive report from Reuters. The article cites four sources familiar with a May 2019 meeting in Tehran in which senior officials planned the Sept. 14 attack under instructions from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the operation should not kill Americans or civilians. “It is time to take out our swords and teach them a lesson,” the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, reportedly said at the event. Iran reportedly targeted Saudi oil facilities in Abqaiq using missiles and drones launched from an airbase in western Iran.