New assessments of the Aramco attack .. And Washington announced its readiness to defend its allies

The US administration is considering options to respond to an attack on vital oil installations in Saudi Arabia. Vice President Mike Pence said his country stands ready to defend the interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East.

Pence said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would travel to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss the US response to the attack on Saudi Aramco's oil facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia on Saturday, for which the Yemeni Houthi group claimed responsibility.

If Iran carried out the attack on Saudi Arabia to pressure President Trump to back down from imposing sanctions on Tehran, it would fail, the vice president said in a speech at the Heritage Research Institute.

"We are evaluating the evidence and consulting with our allies and the president will determine the best course of action in the coming days."

In the meantime, CNN quoted a source familiar with the investigation as saying that Saudi and US investigators have reached "a very high degree of probability" that the attack was launched from a base in Iran close to the border with Iraq.

The source added that the assessment indicates that the attack was carried out with cruise missiles (winged) with drones flying low-level over southern Iraq and then in Kuwaiti airspace before reaching its targets.

In the same vein, a US official told Reuters that the United States believes that the attack on Aramco was launched from southwestern Iran.

The agency also quoted three US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, that the attack involved drones and cruise missiles, showing that the attack involved a higher degree of sophistication and sophistication than initially thought.

US President Donald Trump said earlier that Iran appeared to be responsible for the attack, and US press reports said intelligence suggested the attack was launched from Iran, but Tehran denied that.

Statements by King Salman
On the other hand, the King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdul Aziz during a meeting of the Council of Ministers today Saudi Arabia's ability to deal with the effects of such attacks, which he described as cowardly.

He said that the Kingdom would defend its vital lands and facilities and that it was able to respond to those acts from whatever source.

The Saudi cabinet said the attack was aimed primarily at global energy supplies, adding that it was an extension of what it described as previous aggressions against Saudi Aramco pumping stations using Iranian weapons.

On the other hand, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet on Twitter today that the United States is "in a state of denial" of reality as it refuses to believe that the attack on Saudi oil installations was launched from Yemen and not from Iran.

"The United States is in denial if it thinks that Yemeni victims of four and a half years of the most heinous war crimes will not do what they can to launch counter-strikes," Zarif wrote.

"Maybe it is embarrassing because hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons have not come under Yemeni fire," he said, referring to the Houthi group.