Washington: Small instruments found inside drones that targeted Saudi Arabia’s oilfields last year prove the attack came from Iran, two reports have concluded.
Gyroscopes recovered from the drones are similar to those found inside such unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) manufactured by Iran, analysts from Conflict Armament Research group said in a report released on Wednesday.
That follows a recently released report from the UN, saying its experts saw a similar gyroscope from an Iranian drone obtained by the US military in Afghanistan, as well as in a shipment of cruise missiles seized in the Arabian Sea bound for Yemen.
A gyroscope is a sensor which helps electronic devices orient themselves. In missiles, they are used to guide the projectile to its target.
The discovery further ties Iran to an attack that briefly halved Saudi Arabia’s oil output and saw energy prices spike by a level unseen since the 1991 Gulf War. It also ties Iran to the arming of Houthis in Yemen’s long civil war.
“This gyroscope ... we’ve seen it now enough times in Iranian-manufactured material to be able to confidently say that the presence of it in a Houthi-produced item suggests that the material was supplied from Iran,” Jonah Leff of Conflict Armament Research said.
The gyroscopes in question bear no manufacturer’s name and come in at least two versions labelled V9 and V10, according to the reports.
Weapons experts found the V9 version in drones used in the September attack on Abqaiq oilfield.
“According to UAV experts familiar with this technology, such vertical gyroscopes have not been observed in any UAVs other than those manufactured by Iran,” the report said.
The US Navy announced a new weapons cache find aboard a dhow in the Arabian Sea this month. Lt Col Earl Brown, a spokesman for the US military’s Central Command, on Wednesday said American sailors found similar gyroscopes in that seizure as well.