Trump Tells MbS US Ready to Help Protect Saudi Security
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – US President Donald Trump told Saudi Arabia’s crown prince that Washington was ready to cooperate with the kingdom to protect its security, following drone attacks on Saudi oil plants on Saturday.
Trump also told Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call that assaults on Saudi oil facilities had a negative impact on the US and global economies, Reuters reported.
Two sources close to the matter said five million barrels a day of crude production had been impacted, accounting for nearly half of the kingdom's output or five percent of the global oil supply.
Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest exporter, shipping more than 7 million barrels of oil to global destinations every day, and for years has served as the supplier of last resort to markets.
The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces said on Saturday that the Arab country’s combat drones had launched retaliatory attacks against the Saudi major Aramco facility in the eastern city of Abqaiq, inflicting major losses on the kingdom’s largest oil plant.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree further warned that the number of similar attacks against the kingdom would rise if the Saudi-led war against Yemen continued.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 91,000 lives over the past four and a half years.
