Tehran Rejects Blame for Attacks on Ras Tanura and Shaybah, Calls for Regional Unity Amid Expanding War.
Tehran says it’s not targeting Saudi oil — but Gulf infrastructure keeps getting hit. Who’s really escalating?
Iran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia has denied that Tehran is behind recent drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities, insisting that Iranian forces are targeting only U.S. and Israeli military assets during the ongoing conflict.
Alireza Enayati said that if Iran had carried out strikes on Saudi infrastructure, it would have publicly acknowledged responsibility. “If we were behind it, we would have announced it,” he was quoted as saying. He did not identify an alternative perpetrator.
The denial comes after Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery temporarily halted operations following a drone incident that caused a small fire. Separate attempted attacks were reported at the Shaybah oilfield near the UAE border. Saudi authorities have not formally assigned blame.
The incidents add strain to a region already unsettled by weeks of confrontation between Iran, the United States and Israel. After Washington and Jerusalem launched strikes in late February, Tehran retaliated against military targets across several Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.
Yet Enayati stressed that relations between Tehran and Riyadh remain “progressing naturally.” The two countries restored diplomatic ties in 2023 under a China-brokered agreement that ended years of hostility. He said he remains in direct contact with Saudi officials and reiterated that Saudi territory would not be used to launch attacks on Iran.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, echoed the ambassador’s position, denying that Iran targets civilian areas and proposing a joint investigative committee with neighboring states to determine responsibility for infrastructure strikes.
The broader Gulf landscape remains fragile. The United Arab Emirates — which normalized relations with Israel in 2020 — has absorbed repeated attacks on U.S. bases and energy sites. While Gulf governments have condemned Iranian missile and drone activity, regional sources describe growing frustration with Washington, arguing that they are bearing economic and security costs for a conflict not of their choosing.
Enayati framed the crisis as the product of “excessive reliance on external powers,” urging deeper cooperation among the Gulf Cooperation Council members, Iraq and Iran. The message underscores Tehran’s effort to prevent a unified regional front against it.
Analysts suggest Iran’s strategy has shifted from competing militarily to testing endurance. As Paul Musgrave of Georgetown University in Qatar observed, the contest may hinge less on firepower than on “who has the highest threshold for pain.”
For Gulf states, the question is equally stark: how to shield their economies and infrastructure while avoiding deeper entanglement in a widening war.
