Saudi Arabia's Deputy Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman said in a tweet on Thursday that the Houthi rebels' attacks against oil giant Aramco's facilities showed that the group was an Iranian tool which Tehran used to implement its agenda in the region.
"The terrorist acts, ordered by the regime in Tehran and carried out by the Houthis, are tightening the noose around the ongoing political efforts," he said, without elaborating.
On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia carried out 17 airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen after the Shiite fighters claimed responsibility for the sabotage of the Saudi oil installations.
Saudi Araba said the Houthis, which are trying to take control of Yemen and are backed by Iran, had used drones to attack one of its oil pipelines as other assaults targeted energy infrastructure elsewhere in the kingdom. A fire broke out, later firefighters brought it under control, although the state-run Saudi Aramco stopped pumping oil through the pipeline.
This is the latest escalation in the ongoing tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which has intensified in recent days after two of the kingdom's oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
There is growing speculation that Iran or its proxies were behind the act of sabotage. Shortly after it was discovered, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran that it would "suffer greatly" if it attacked U.S. interests in the region.
Last week, Iran said it was pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal because of the U.S. sanctions against Iran, which has dealt a crushing blow to its economy, particularly its main export sectors and triggered an economic crisis.
