The National Council of Resistance of Iran exposed evidence on Monday that connects the September 14 attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities to the “religious fascism ruling Iran.”

Soona Samsami, the U.S. spokeswoman for NCRI, laid out the case in a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., where she alleged evidence collected from inside the Iranian government illustrates the decision was made by Supreme National Security Council and carried out by top level generals.

“Based on information obtained … from inside the Iranian regime, the decision for this attack was taken in the Supreme National Security Council, SNSC, that is presided over by the regime’s president, Hossain Rouhani,” Samsami said.

The attack, which interrupted 5.5 percent of the world’s energy needs, including supply to the U.S. and China, reportedly involved Iranian drones and missiles as part of a campaign to escalate tensions in the region.

“Our intelligence shows that the regime calculus is it will not pay a heavy price for all its aggression up to the U.S. presidential election in 2020,” Samsami said. “With the regime attack on oil tankers and oil facilities, and then downing of an American drone, and then its increase in Uranium enrichment … it did not receive any appropriate response.

“The regime became even more emboldened and embarked on a blatant act of war on Saudi Arabia,” Samsami said.

SCRI Deputy Director Alireza Jafarzadeh followed Samsami at the press conference to detail the evidence collected by the group, which aims to oust Iran’s “religious dictatorship” in favor of a democratic government.

Jafarzadeh contends the SNSC approved the plan of attack against the Saudi Arabian oil facilities on July 31 in a meeting involving Rouhani and several commanders with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran, approved the operation and ordered IRGC Major General Gholam-Ali Rashid and Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh to put it in action.

A week before the attack, the IRGC air force deployed to the Khuzestan province in southwest Iran, where a squad of commanders set up a headquarters on the Omidiyeh base near Ahvaz, according to Jafarzadeh.

NCRI sources report IRGC commanders and military experts in missiles and drones also transferred to the Omidiyeh base, where they launched the attack days later.

“A few days after the IRGC air force’s missile and drone unit carried out the attack on September 14, 2019, the operational commanders reported in detail to IRGC Major General Gholam-Ali Rashid, commander of the central headquarters Khatam-ol Anbiya,” according to the NCRI website.

The group implies new reports suggest another attack could be in the works.

“Based on the latest reports received from inside Iran, a new squad from the IRGC air force from Tehran has entered Omidiyeh base on Sunday, September 22, 2019. There is no information on their orders yet,” NCRI reports.

“Our recommendation to the international community is just to be firm, stand firm, against the Iranian regime, that’s the only way to do it, but at the same time you want to look at where the Achilles heel of the Iranian regime is and that’s … the internal situation,” Jafarzadeh said.

“The regime is weak, it’s vulnerable, it’s very much afraid of its population. Remember the uprising that started in late 2017 and into 2018, the regime has not succeeded in crushing that uprising,” he added. “The discontent has spread to various sectors of the Iranian society. There are truck drivers, peasants, workers, who are constantly going on strike and expressing themselves.

“So the regime feels there’s an explosive situation and the only way to deal with it is to resort to such situations,” Jafarzadeh said, referring to hostile aggressions against Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and allies. “The vast majority of the Iranian population are opposed to this regime.”

NCRI contends the solution involves international support for the Iranian resistance, and to back citizens who are standing up for their rights, though Jafarzadeh acknowledged that the maximum pressure policies toward Iran by the Trump administration have been effective.

“The maximum pressure campaign has worked,” he said. “A lot of the resources of the Revolutionary Guard are dried up, in terms of their ability to send money and supplies to their proxies in Syria, in Lebanon, in Iraq.”

“The maximum pressure has in general weakened the entirety of this regime,” Jafarzadeh said. “It’s working, it needs to backed up by political actions, meaning reaching out to the Iranian opposition.”