If, despite its firm denials, Iran was behind attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf last week and a further four last month, they represent a calibrated yet risky pushback against a U.S. sanctions squeeze, regional experts say.
The latest two attacks, Thursday, were much more complex than last month's because the tankers were moving rather than at anchor as previously, said Hossein Aryan, a military analyst who served 18 years in Iran's navy before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The two sources, who declined to be named, said the attacks appeared designed to show that Iran could create chaos if it wanted to but at this point did not want to, perhaps in the hope of persuading the United States and other antagonists to back off rather than trigger conflict.
They did not provide direct evidence of Iranian involvement, but the United States and Saudi Arabia have blamed Iran publicly for both sets of attacks.
Whereas some U.S. sources said they believed Iran encouraged allied militants or militia to carry out last month's attacks, the U.S. military has released a video and still images which it says show Iran's Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the latest vessels to be targeted.
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