By Ahmed Tolba and Muhammad Al Gebaly
July 29 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday that its armed forces, in coordination with U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), carried out “targeted strikes” against Iran-backed groups in Iraq that it said were responsible for drone attacks on the kingdom’s oil facilities.
CENTCOM said the operation followed more than 30 drone attacks over the previous 72 hours that it said were “directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) against U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure”.
The Saudi Defence Ministry said the strikes targeted groups in Iraq that it accused of launching attacks on oil facilities in the kingdom’s Eastern Province. It said Riyadh was not seeking escalation but would respond to any “aggression”.
Iran denied involvement in attacks on Saudi targets. An unnamed military official, quoted by state broadcaster IRIB, said on Wednesday that attributing attacks on U.S. interests in the region to Iran was a “major miscalculation”.
The announcement of the U.S.-Saudi strikes came a few hours after Saudi Arabia said its air defences intercepted and destroyed several drones launched from Iraq. It was the second such attack in less than two days.
Saudi defence ministry spokesperson Turki al-Malki said on Tuesday the drones were launched by what he described as Iran-backed groups in Iraq, adding Riyadh reserved the right to respond “at the appropriate time and place”.
Two members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces were wounded when an air strike targeted the group’s command headquarters in the southern city of Basra, the force’s local directorate said on Wednesday, according to the Iraqi news agency INA.
The PMF, known in Arabic as Hashd al-Shaabi, is an umbrella group of mostly Shi’ite paramilitary factions that was formally integrated into Iraq’s state security forces and includes several groups aligned with Iran.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi ordered an investigation on Monday into the drone attacks, saying Iraq would not allow its territory to be used to launch attacks against neighbours.
(Reporting by Muhammad Al Gebaly and Ahmed Tolba; Additional Reporting by Enas Alashray; Editing by Mark Porter, Sanjeev Miglani and Michael Perry)
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