Saudi Arabia and the United States traded charges with Iran Wednesday over an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, deepening divisions and sharpening a contest for power in the oil-rich Gulf. The Saudis, long at odds with Tehran, said Iran would "pay the price" for an exotic plot described by US officials to assassinate their ambassador.
---- Iran denies plot, says allegation dangerous
---- No hard evidence that Iran leaders knew: US
The United States threatened further sanctions on Iran, while Tehran called the accusation a fabrication designed to sow discord in the region. In Washington, US officials said it was "more than likely" that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, and the head of its elite Quds force knew of the alleged plot. But the officials acknowledged that they had no hard evidence for the claim.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said it was possible Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did not know. Those comments raised the prospect that the affair - handled, analysts said, with little of the professionalism that usually marks Iranian covert activities - was the work of a faction or rogue element within Iran.
US officials said the elaborate plot - which they compared to a film script - would justify pushing for a new round of UN sanctions against Iran. They imposed sanctions on Wednesday on Mahan Air, a commercial Iranian airline which they said provided funds and transport for Iran's elite forces. Tehran said the allegations threaten stability in the Gulf - where Saudi Arabia and Iran, the biggest regional powers, are fierce rivals and Washington has a huge military presence.
Speaking in London, Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal, himself a former ambassador to Washington, said: "The burden of proof is overwhelming ... and clearly shows official Iranian responsibility for this. "Somebody in Iran will have to pay the price."
US Vice President Joe Biden told ABC television that Washington was working on a new round of international sanctions against Iran and "nothing has been taken off the table." Ali Larijani, Iran's parliament speaker, said the "fabricated allegations" aimed to divert attention from revolts in the region and turn Muslim countries against each other. "America wants to divert attention from problems it faces in the Middle East, but the Americans cannot stop the wave of Islamic awakening by using such excuses," Larijani said in an open session of parliament.
UNMASKED US authorities said Tuesday they had unmasked the plot by two Iranians linked to security agencies to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. One, Manssor Arbabsiar, was arrested last month while the other is believed to be in Iran. At a news conference, FBI Director Robert Mueller described a convoluted conspiracy involving monitored international calls, Mexican drug money and an attempt to blow up Jubeir, a confidant of King Abdullah.
Some Iran experts were sceptical, saying they could not see the motive for such a plot. Iran has in the past assassinated its own dissidents abroad, but an attempt to kill an ambassador would be a highly unusual departure. And US officials acknowledged that the plot's exotic elements were far "outside the pattern" of past activity by the Quds Force, an arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
US court documents accuse Arbabsiar, a naturalised US citizen with an Iranian passport, of paying $100,000 to an informant, who had posed as an associate of a Mexican drug cartel but in fact worked for the US Drug Enforcement Agency and alerted the authorities to the plot.