Gulf energy sites hit as drone attacks raise regional alarm

[0:00] there have been attacks reported in kuwait and saudi arabia despite the pause in fighting let's [0:07] bring in rasul sardar so any indication of who's targeting some of these gov countries now well [0:17] sami it was relatively a a a a quiet day in uh calm day in uh across the gcc so with the exception [0:25] of kuwait so quite the uh minister of defense saying that their air defense forces are or [0:32] systems are engaging with the drones attacks however for the first time perhaps they have not [0:39] named or indicate any source for that attack so that's why there is a speculation now that it [0:46] might not be from uh iran but rather the iran affiliated armed groups in iraq however as i [0:53] said this is just an interpretation so there is no official statements about the origins of these [0:59] attacks but sami as now uh the attacks are largely uh stopped the damage that the attacks throughout [1:09] the last six weeks have caused is also now becoming clear so the saudi minister of energy has just [1:16] released a statement it's an assessment of the damage and is saying that that within these uh [1:23] coordinated attacks on the key energy infrastructure including oil gas refining petrochemical and [1:30] electricity facilities in riyadh in eastern province and yambu in the western part of the country have [1:38] caused casualties operational disruptions and major production losses and say one worker a saudi citizen [1:45] was killed and seven other saudi citizens were injured by these attacks and also saying the attacks hit [1:52] the critical sites such as east east west pipeline and cutting flows about 700 000 barrels of oil for [2:02] per day this is quite huge salmon so the east west pipeline was built nearly 40 years ago and it was [2:10] quite essential for saudi arabia now they're saying that 700 000 barrels of oil are cut and also there has [2:17] been attacks on manifa and hurray's fields that has reduced output by 600 000 barrels of oil per day so [2:27] we are roughly talking about 1.3 million barrels of oil being gone from the market as a result of this [2:36] attack so perhaps in the coming days we are going to hear the same statements from qatar from oman from [2:42] united arab emirates from kuwait and bahrain as well so you can see the scale of the attacks and the [2:48] damage that is caused so a lot of concern for the gulf as uh talks are supposed to start ceasefire [2:54] talks in pakistan do we know how much input gulf countries will get in those talks sami they are not [3:05] directly at the table so what we see in it's an iranian delegation and an american delegation and [3:11] pakistan is going to mediate between them however having said that there are constant phone talks [3:17] between the uh foreign ministers and the head of states of the gccs with the pakistani counterpart so [3:24] today uh the emir of qatar had a phone call with shahbaz sharif prime minister of pakistan and then king [3:31] of bahrain also had a phone call then yesterday the foreign minister of saudi arabia faisal bin farhan had a [3:38] phone call with with uh with shahbaz sharif and the kuwaiti foreign minister so constant phone calls [3:44] with the mediator over there what we see they are not directly at the table in this phase at least [3:52] but the constant communication is happening through the parties and what we see is that at this stage [3:58] the gcc countries are communicating their demands uh remotely as of now however they they are quite [4:06] clear on their demands first that the strait of hormuz is not negotiable so that any change of the status [4:15] of the state of hormuz is unacceptable by the gcc countries this is economic lifeline of the gcc [4:21] countries so they are not going to accept any control of a certain accent as actor on g on on [4:28] state of hormones and the second demand is iran's missiles program so they have seen that iranian missiles [4:36] are quite a huge concern for the gcc country because they have caused significant damage so they want [4:42] this missile program not to remain as a threat for the gcc in the future and the third concern [4:49] is iranian proxies particularly those in iraq because throughout the recent war we have seen [4:56] there have been hundreds of drones particularly targeting kuwait and saudi arabia so they want to [5:02] make sure that the iranian proxies in the future are also not going to destabilize the gcc countries [5:07] however as at this stage so the the the the gcc companies are indirectly uh negotiating but in the [5:15] coming days and weeks we do not know whether there will be a direct involvement or not i'm going to [5:21] leave it there thanks so much to us all sardar reporting from riyadh in saudi arabia