Saudi Arabia and the United States claimed yesterday they had evidence Iran was behind an attack on the kingdom’s oil facilities.

Saudi military spokesman Col Turki al-Malki said Iranian weapons were used in Saturday’s strikes on the Khurais oilfield and the Abqaiq refinery – the world’s largest petroleum processing plant.

However, he did not openly blame Iran for the attack – which has knocked out 5pc of global crude oil production – suggesting that the Saudis are trying to calm the increasingly tense situation before it spills into war.

Instead, he said Riyadh would investigate where the drones were launched, as he did not believe the Iran-backed Houthi militia, who are fighting the Saudi-backed government in Yemen, was responsible for the attack, as they had claimed.

“This strike didn’t come from Yemen as the Houthi militia are pretending,” Col al-Malki said. “It was a massive and highly sophisticated attack.”

Experts also said it was unlikely to have been the militia. “This wasn’t done by an amateur, to put it very mildly,” tweeted Carl Bildt, co-chairman of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

An unnamed US official claimed Iran launched nearly a dozen cruise missiles and more than 20 drones from its own territory.

“It was Iran. The Houthis are claiming credit for something they did not do,” he said.

Severe damage to the Abqaiq plant has halted production of 5.7 million barrels of crude a day, briefly causing the biggest jump in oil prices since the 1991 Gulf War.

US President Donald Trump tried in vain to reassure Americans there would not be a knock-on effect.

“PLENTY OF OIL!” he tweeted, followed by: “We don’t need Middle Eastern Oil & Gas & in fact have very few tankers there, but will help our Allies!”

He warned Iran that the US was “locked and loaded”, although he said he would take his cue from Saudi Arabia on how to respond.

The US later downplayed the president’s comments, with a White House official saying “locked and loaded” was “a broad term” that referred to protecting the US from energy dependence.

Mr Trump has said he does not want war with Iran, despite pursuing a “maximum pressure” policy towards the nation, which is refusing to sign a new treaty that would place indefinite curbs on its nuclear programme.

Britain yesterday condemned the attack on the oil facilities as “a wanton violation of international law”, but said it was necessary to determine the facts before pursuing a response.

UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab said: “In terms of who is responsible, the picture is not entirely clear.”

Yesterday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani clearly placed the blame on the Yemeni rebels.

“The people of Yemen have been forced to respond, they are only defending themselves,” he told the Turkish media.

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