DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – The United States has joined the United Kingdom and Israel in accusing Iran of carrying out a deadly drone strike that killed two aboard a tanker off Oman.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the announcement in a statement Sunday.

Blinken said: “Upon review of the available information, we are confident that Iran conducted this attack, which killed two innocent people, using one-way explosive (drones), a lethal capability it is increasingly employing throughout the region.”

He added that there was “no justification for this attack, which follows a pattern of attacks and other belligerent behavior.”

Iran earlier denied being involved. Israel’s prime minister directly blamed Iran and made a veiled threat about retaliating.

Calling it a “unlawful and callous attack,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said his country and its allies planned a coordinated response over the strike Thursday night on the oil tanker Mercer Street. It marked the first-known fatal attack after years of assaults on commercial shipping in the region linked to tensions with Iran over its tattered nuclear deal.

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While no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, Iran and its militia allies have used so-called “suicide” drones in attacks previously, which crash into targets and detonate their explosive payloads. However, Israel, the U.K. and the responding U.S. Navy have yet to show physical evidence from the strike or offer intelligence information on why they blame Tehran.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett went further than Raab in remarks Sunday at a Cabinet meeting, making a point to stare directly into the camera and slowly warn: “We know, at any rate, know how to convey the message to Iran in our own way.”

The drone attack blasted a hole through the top of the oil tanker’s bridge, where the captain and crew command the vessel, a U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as an investigation into the attack still was ongoing. The blast killed two crew members from the United Kingdom and Romania.

The Navy said the American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and the guided missile destroyer USS Mitscher escorted the Mercer Street as it headed to a safe port. On Sunday, satellite-tracking information from MarineTraffic.com showed the tanker stopped off the coast of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.

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In his statement, Raab said it was “highly likely” Iran attacked the tanker with one or more drones.

“We believe this attack was deliberate, targeted and a clear violation of international law by Iran,” he said. “Iran must end such attacks, and vessels must be allowed to navigate freely in accordance with international law.”

Earlier, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh described the allegation Iran carried out the attack as “baseless.”

“It’s not the first time that the Zionist regime occupying Jerusalem has made such empty accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Khatibzadeh said. “Wherever this regime has gone, it has taken instability, terror and violence with it.”

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He added: “Whoever sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind.”

Khatibzadeh spoke around an hour after Iran’s outgoing president acknowledged that his government at times “did not tell part of the truth” to the public during his term.

From Jerusalem, Bennett offered condolences to both the United Kingdom and Romania for the killing of their citizens. He said Israeli intelligence had evidence linking Iran to the attack, but did not offer it.

“Iran is the one who carried out the attack against the ship,” he said. “Iran’s aggressive behavior is dangerous not only for Israel, but harms global interests in the freedom of navigation and international trade.”

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Other Israel-linked ships have been targeted in recent months as well amid a shadow war between the two nations, with Israeli officials blaming the Islamic Republic for the assaults. Shipping in the region began being targeted in the summer of 2019, about a year after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

Israel meanwhile has been suspected of conducting a series of major attacks in Iran and on Iranian shipping. Also, Iran saw its largest warship recently sink under mysterious circumstances in the nearby Gulf of Oman.

The Mercer Street, owned by Japan’s Taihei Kaiun Co., is managed by London-based Zodiac Maritime, part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. In early July, the Liberian-flagged container ship CSAV Tyndall, once tied to Zodiac Maritime, suffered an unexplained explosion on board while in the northern Indian Ocean, according to the U.S. Maritime Administration.

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The attack marks the first major confrontation with Iran for Bennett, who took over as premier in June after a coalition deal unseated Israel’s long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is suspected of launching a series of attacks targeting Iran, including explosions at the country’s main enrichment site and the killing of a prominent military nuclear scientist.

However, Bennett as well has made hawkish comments in the past about needing to attack “the head of the octopus” in Tehran as opposed to Iran’s regional militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon. The attack on the Mercer Street marks the first during his time as prime minister and analysts suggest he could seek a major attack in retaliation.

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“Israel may wish to deliver a resounding blow; that’s the spirit of political sources’ comments in Jerusalem,” wrote Amos Harel, a longtime military analyst for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “This blow will be aimed at ending things without a tit-for-tat that could escalate. But as usual, events also depend on the other side.”

Months ahead of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Wuhan National Biosafety Lab requested bids for major renovations to air safety and waste treatment systems in research facilities that had been operational for less than 2 years, according to a new congressional report on the pandemic’s origins, obtained by Fox News. 

“Such a significant renovation so soon after the facility began operation appears unusual,” said the report from the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Republican staff.  The projects for air disinfection, hazardous waste and central air conditioning systems “all raise questions about how well these systems were functioning in the months prior to the outbreak of COVID-19.” 

The true reason for the procurement posting is unclear, as is when or if the work was even initiated.  It adds another circumstantial element to the controversial argument that the pandemic began in a Wuhan lab, including suspicious behavior and obfuscation from China’s government and signs the pandemic began months before previously assumed. 

Only weeks ahead of President Biden’s deadline for the intelligence community’s review into the origins of the pandemic, Republicans will release their most detailed case yet arguing that researchers in Wuhan could have genetically manipulated the virus and that “the preponderance of evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory.” 

Staff for Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will include this information as an addendum to their September report.   

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Over the past several months, more public health experts, scientists and government officials have called for an investigation into a possible lab leak, along with examinations into whether the virus began naturally.  They’ve called for a thorough, independent investigation, in China, into the origins of the pandemic, though the Chinese Communist Party has denied access. 

Without cooperation from China’s government, there is significant skepticism any of the handful of U.S. government investigations will provide a concrete narrative into how the pandemic originated.  Beyond the Biden administration’s ongoing review, the State Department, under the previous administration, published a declassified report days before leaving office.  At the time, it offered the most detailed case yet that the coronavirus had leaked from a lab. 

Citing the ongoing intelligence community review, Democratic leaders have shown little interest in congressional investigations, leaving Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs and Energy and Commerce Committees to conduct their own reviews.  Democrats control Congress, and its committees, and Republicans alone, therefore, have no subpoena power. 

Using project announcements published on the Chinese government’s procurement website, along with other open-sourced data, interviews with former administration officials and scientists, research papers and international press reports, Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee have built their argument on a timeline that claims the virus escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology “sometime prior to September 12, 2019.” 

On that day, the Wuhan University, less than a mile from the WIV’s headquarters, issued a notice for laboratory inspections.  Hours later, the WIV’s viral sequence database disappeared from the internet. Later that evening, the institute published an announcement for bids for “security services” at the lab “to include gatekeepers, guards, video surveillance, security patrols, and people to handle the ‘registration and reception of foreign personnel,’” according to the report. 

Citing testimony from “a former senior U.S. official,” the report claims Major General Chen Wei, an expert in biology and chemical weapon defenses, took control of the Wuhan Institute’s biosafety level-4 lab in late 2019.  That timing demonstrates the Chinese Communist Party “was concerned about the activity happening there as news of the virus was spreading,” according to the report.  “If she took control in 2019, it would mean the CCP knew about the virus earlier, and that the outbreak began earlier.” 

Satellite imagery of Wuhan in September and October 2019 showed a significant increase in hospital visits and internet searches for COVID-19 symptoms.  The report also claims that mapping data suggesting researchers at the lab likely used the Wuhan shuttle bus and city metro for their daily work commute, spreading the virus throughout the city. 

The committee also used an interview in Bloomberg with Dr. Danielle Anderson, an Australian virologist, to establish some of the lab’s commuting patterns.  Anderson is the only foreign scientist to have undertaken research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s BSL-4 lab, according to Bloomberg.  She also told the publication that entering and exiting the facility was carefully choreographed, and included requirements to take precisely timed chemical and personal showers.   

In that June interview, Dr. Anderson maintained she knew of no one at the Wuhan institute who was ill towards the end of 2019 and said she believes the virus most likely came from a natural source. 

Around that time, the Republican researchers said there’s evidence the virus was spreading throughout central Wuhan, just ahead of the World Military Games which, “became an international vector, spreading the virus to multiple continents around the world.” 

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In October, Wuhan hosted the 2019 Military World Games, which drew thousands of military personnel to compete in Olympic-style events.  International press reports cite athletes claiming events were conducted without fans and that Wuhan was a “ghost town.”  Athletes from several countries complained of COVID-like symptoms and four countries that sent athletes have confirmed the presence of COVID-19 in November and December of 2019, before the outbreak became public, according to the report. 

The committee staff also build their argument on the possibility viruses can be genetically modified without leaving evidence of manipulation.  They cite an Italian publication’s interview with Dr. Ralph Baric, who studies coronaviruses at the University of North Carolina and collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in which he claimed that scientists can engineer a virus “without leaving any trace. Dr. Baric told the MIT Technology Review that “We never created a supervirus.” 

Republican staff also cite a 2017 dissertation from a doctoral student working at the WIV that claimed coronaviruses could be manipulated without leaving any trace sequences.  They said they also interviewed “scientists and current and former U.S. government officials” who questioned whether the virus developed naturally because of its highly infectious nature, lack of intermediate host discovered, and its highly efficient binding to human ACE2 receptor. 

Some scientists have pointed out it often takes years to determine the origins of naturally occurring virus.  They cite Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which was first discovered in 2003.  That same year researchers discovered the intermediate host though it took until 2017 to trace its origin to bats. 

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As calls to at least investigate the lab-leak theory have gained traction internationally, Chinese government propaganda has become much more aggressive to dispel it – the latest in a pattern to obscure information about the pandemic since its onset. 

On February 27, 2020, Health Times, published an interview with Yu Chuanhua, the Vice President of the Hubei Health Statistics and Information Society, who has compiled a database of confirmed COVID-19 cases.  He cited a patient who became ill September 29 and that “There were two cases in November, and the onset time was November 14 and November 21, 2019.” 

“Before the interview was published on February 27th, Yu called the reporter and tried to retract the information regarding the two sick patients in November. It is likely that this was done to comply with the China CDC gag order that was issued two days prior,” according to the congressional report. 

In a January 2021 email, Dr. Shi Zheng-li, a senior scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was asked about the lab’s public database disappearance from the internet.  Shi, according to the report, had previously “given several conflicting answers” as to why the database was taken down, and responded:  “I’ll not answer any of your questions if your curiosity is based on the conspiracy of ‘man made or lab leak of SARS-CoV-2’ or some non-sense questions based on your suspicion.”  

“No trust, no conversation,” she said.