Petroline shut down, launch pads found on Iraqi border: Riyadh suspends retaliation

On September 12, Iraqi security sources told AFP that drone launch pads had been found near the border with Iran. The discovery follows the attack on the Saudi East-West pipeline, which both Riyadh and Baghdad indicate originated from Iraqi territory. The Iraqi prime minister has ordered an investigation into those responsible; the government has condemned the attack and welcomed the Saudi decision not to respond militarily.

That decision is the day’s second new development. The Saudi Foreign Ministry condemned the attack by “several drones coming from Iraq” and stated that the kingdom is refraining from retaliation to leave room for the Iraqi government to intervene. The Energy Ministry had meanwhile announced the precautionary shutdown of the Petroline following Thursday’s attacks in the Riyadh and Medina regions, which caused some injuries.

The shutdown carries weight because that pipeline is the alternative outlet to the Strait. The Petroline connects Abqaiq, near the Gulf, to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, and is Saudi Arabia’s main route for bypassing a closure of Hormuz. In early June, exports from Yanbu exceeded 5 million barrels per day according to the International Energy Agency: that is the capacity now at a standstill along with the pipeline.

The Iraqi context adds a deadline. Baghdad’s government has set September 30 as the deadline for the disarmament of non-state groups, and several militias have already declared they will not comply. The investigation into the launch pads and the disarmament deadline are therefore running over the same eighteen days.

On the diplomatic front, on Monday foreign ministers of Arab countries in the region are expected in Salalah, Oman, together with Iran’s foreign minister, to discuss a temporary agreement on commercial transit through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the Omani channel the newspaper has been following since late August: on August 27 we reported on the Iranian-Omani proposal for a temporary shipping corridor. Iran’s position remains conditional: President Masoud Pezeshkian told India Today that the Strait will reopen if the United States ends the naval blockade against Iran.

The uneven degree of verifiability of the material should be noted. The discovery of the launch pads is reported by anonymous Iraqi security sources via AFP: no independent confirmation or public documentation is currently available, and the attribution of the attack remains a claim by the Saudi and Iraqi governments, not a fact established by third parties. The decisions on the pipeline shutdown and the renunciation of retaliation are, by contrast, official Saudi announcements, carried by the SPA agency and by international outlets.

Today’s third point, further south: in the Bab el-Mandeb, the Houthis have taken the island of Mayun, also known as Perim. The circumstance is confirmed by a senior official of the internationally recognized Yemeni government and by a Houthi official, both anonymous. Mayun sits on the passage linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, that is, on the route to Yanbu, the terminal of the pipeline now shut down.

Sources: France 24 (AFP); ABC News Australia; Al Jazeera; Iran International; CNN.