Saudi says prevented attack on offshore oil field

Saudi Arabia has announced the foiling of an apparent terrorist attack on an offshore oil field.

Saudi Press Agency (SPA) cited an official sources as stating the attack happened at 8:28pm on Friday, June 16.

The source said three small boats bearing red and white flags entered Saudi territorial waters in the Arabian Gulf and headed at speed towards the Saudi oil field of Marjan.

The boats did not respond to warning shots by Saudi naval forces before one was captured and found to be carrying weapons “for subversive” purposes. The other two escaped, according to SPA.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stresses its determination to combat and eradicate terrorism and its sources, as a part of the country’s permanent objective to protect its national security against any external aggression,” SPA said.

It was unclear whether the source was implying the boats came from Qatar, which has a flag matching the description.

The Gulf country has been restricted from using Saudi territorial waters since the kingdom, along with the UAE and Bahrain, broke relations two weeks ago.

Read: Saudi, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt sever ties with Qatar over ‘terrorism’

The countries, and other Arab states including Egypt, accuse Qatar of having links to terrorist groups.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said last week that the kingdom was drawing up a list of “grievances” to present to Qatar soon.

Read: Saudi working on list of Qatar ‘grievances’