U.S. Jets Enter Iranian Airspace, Oil Depot Bombed

2011-12-23

Richard Moore


The Iranian news agency IRNA reported today that a U.S. missile hit an oil depot in the southwest village of Abadan on Wednesday. IRNA said British and American jets had entered Iranian airspace several times.

In addition to the oil depot attack, two rockets reportedly hit the village of Manyuhi near the border of Iraq’s al-Faw Peninsula near the Persian Gulf and the Iraqi city of Basra.

“In the border city of Arvand-Kenar, the invading American and British airplanes violated the airspace of the Islamic Republic of Iran three times,” a commander told the Islamic Republic News Agency.

The governor of Abadan told IRNA that three people, including a guard at the oil depot, had been released from hospital after receiving treatment, reports Mail Online.

No details were released on damage to the oil depot.

On December 12, Iran said its new Abadan refinery will raise its daily output of high-octane gasolineby almost 12,600 barrels by January 20, 2012. “Gasoline making and upgrading plans of Abadan oil refinery are going on respectively with 800 million and 3 billion dollars investment,” the Iranian Fars New Agency reported on December 13.

During the Republican debates in November, Newt Gingrich said he would bomb Iran “as a last resort and with a goal of bringing about the downfall of the government.”

In June, the former Speaker of the House said that the U.S. should “sabotage” Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure as part of its efforts to bring down the government. Gingrich said the U.S. should “use covert operations … to create a gasoline-led crisis to try and replace the regime.”

In early December, Iran warned that any attempt to cut its oil production would more than double crude prices with cataclysmic result on a battered global economy.

“As soon as such an issue is raised seriously the oil price would soar to above $250 a barrel,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in a newspaper interview.