Those three countries [United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Norway] gave a statement on their investigation to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday. They said the sabotage was likely carried out by several teams of operatives who deployed experienced divers armed with limpet mines, which are are magnetic explosives usually attached to a ship's hull.

Their joint document did not name any country suspected of being behind the attack, but the Saudi ambassador to the U.N. blamed Iran.

"We believe that the responsibility for this action lies on the shoulders of Iran," Abdallah Y. Al-Mouallimi said, according to Reuters. "We have no hesitation in making this statement."

This echoes previous allegations by national security adviser John Bolton, who said he believes it was the work of "naval mines almost certainly from Iran."

Iran, which lies some 60 miles from the UAE across the Gulf of Oman, has denied the allegations and has called for an independent investigation.

The backdrop to the sabotage attack last month is an atmosphere of rising tension between the U.S. and Iran. The administration of President Donald Trump has been taking a far more hawkish stance since coming into office, and U.S. officials have been warning about what they claim is the risk Iran could launch an attack.

Over the last month, the Trump administration announced that it was sending an aircraft carrier strike group and Air Force bombers to the Middle East, as well as Patriot missiles and additional troops.

Some analysts questioned why Iran would carry out such an attack, which threatened to draw the ire of the U.S. and its allies and risk a all-out conflict it would lose. Others have pointed out that the U.S. as "a long history of provoking, instigating, or launching wars based on dubious, flimsy, or manufactured threats," as the New Yorker put it last month.

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