Washington believes the attacks on the Saudi oil industry, which escalated tensions in the Middle East, originated from Iran, according to the Reuters news agency.
Unexpected transactions took place on the Moscow stock exchange a few days before the September 14 attacks, according to Poland’s niezalezna.pl website.
On September 11, someone suddenly started to buy up oil futures on the Moscow stock market for a low price, Russian energy market expert Mikhail Krutikhin was quoted as saying by niezalezna.pl.
If something like that happened in another country an investigation would be started immediately “because someone knew there would be an attack” and made money on it, the website cited Krutikhin as saying.
niezalezna.pl reported that Krutikhin’s remarks came in an interview he gave to French radio broadcaster RFI on Tuesday evening.
Krutikhin, as cited by niezalezna.pl, said the information about the attacks could have come from the intelligence community, which may have passed it on to market players, or intelligence officers themselves could be active on the market.
Alternatively, the information may have come from people who participated in planning the attacks along with those who carried them out, Krutikhin said, as quoted by niezalezna.pl.
Iran has denied it was involved in the strikes. Iran’s allies in Yemen’s civil war, the Houthi movement, claimed they had carried out the attacks using drones.
(pk/gs)
Source: niezalezna.pl/PAP