BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) rejected accusations that it struck Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline, calling the claims against it “an honor we do not claim” and challenging the Iraqi government to produce evidence.
“While we congratulate the proud Yemeni people on their continuing victories in the field against Saudi forces and their mercenaries, we affirm that the accusations directed at the Iraqi resistance in relation to the targeting of vital Saudi installations last Friday are an honor we do not claim,” the IRI said in a statement.
The group said it was astonished at “the Iraqi government’s haste in adopting these allegations without relying on credible evidence or concrete investigations,” and dismissed the attribution as a distraction from Saudi losses in Yemen.
Baghdad’s move, it said, risked serving “the malicious Zionist-American schemes that seek to drag Iraq into crises that serve none but its enemies.”
The statement declared the group’s readiness to join any official inquiry “in order to establish the truth, rather than going along with dubious narratives,” while congratulating “the proud Yemeni people on their continuing victories in the field against Saudi forces and their mercenaries.”
The Iraqi government adopted the Saudi accusation, moving quickly to condemn the attack, rejecting any assault that undermines Saudi Arabia’s security or damages relations between the two countries, and said it would not permit its territory or airspace to be used to launch attacks.
The Iraqi prime minister’s office said the drones had been launched from Maysan governorate, ordering an urgent investigation and dismissing the province’s operations commander from his post. 
Iraqi security authorities closed several border crossings as a precaution, including two with Iran, shut to all passenger and commercial traffic until further notice.
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy confirmed on Friday that the East–West Pipeline “was shut down as a precautionary measure,” without specifying a duration or timeline for the closure. 
The East–West Pipeline has been Saudi Arabia’s main route to world markets since Iran effectively closed off the Strait of Hormuz to hostile shipping, carrying between four and five percent of global oil supply across the peninsula to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
The closure comes as a Yemeni offensive swept down the Red Sea coast, taking the major port city of Mokha and Perim Island and leaving the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) in command of Bab al-Mandab and Yemen’s western coastline, with passage declared open to all shipping except Saudi vessels.