Weapons debris from attack site allegedly shows Aramco attack came from north, US says, blaming Iran.

The United States has said new evidence and analysis of weapons debris recovered from an attack on Saudi oil facilities on September 14 indicates that the attack likely came from the north, reinforcing its earlier assessment that Iran was behind the offensive.

In an interim report of its investigation - seen by Reuters News Agency ahead of a presentation on Thursday to the United Nations Security Council - Washington assessed that before hitting its targets, one of the drones traversed a location approximately 200 kilometres (124 miles) northwest of the attack site.

"This, in combination with the assessed 900 kilometer maximum range of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), indicates with high likelihood that the attack originated north of Abqaiq," the interim report said, referring to the location of one of the Saudi oil facilities that were hit.

It added that the US had identified several similarities between the drones used in the raid and an Iranian-designed and produced unmanned aircraft known as the IRN-05 UAV.

The report, however, noted that the analysis of the weapons debris did not definitely reveal the origin of the attack that initially knocked out half of Saudi Arabia's oil production.

"At this time, the US Intelligence Community has not identified any information from the recovered weapon systems used in the 14 September attacks on Saudi Arabia that definitively reveals an attack origin," it said.

The new findings include freshly-declassified information, a State Department official told Reuters.

The US, European powers and Saudi Arabia blamed the September 14 attack on Iran. Yemen's Houthi group claimed responsibility for the attacks, and Iran, which supports the Houthis, denied any involvement. Yemen is south of Saudi Arabia.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA