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Iran's supreme leader accuses Saudis of 'genocide' in Yemen
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Iran’s supreme leader has accused Saudi Arabia of committing genocide in Yemen and said air strikes against Houthi rebels are doomed to fail, in a sharp escalation of tensions between the two rivals over the outcome of yet another bruising conflict in the Middle East.
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In Iran’s most critical comments yet, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis was a mistake and warned that the intervention will ultimately backfire on Riyadh.
Tehran’s foreign ministry also summoned the Saudi envoy over claims that Iran was meddling in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab allies accuse Shia Iran of militarily backing the Houthis, who call themselves Ansar Allah (“supporters of Allah”) and belong to the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam.
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The Saudis are attempting to halt an advance by the Houthis and reinstate ousted president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled first to the main southern city of Aden, and then to Riyadh. Houthi fighters, who control the capital city Sana’a, have spread out across the country and are now engaged in heavy street fighting in Aden.
Khamenei’s stark warning came as the UN secretary general said that air strikes and rebel advances in Yemen “have turned an internal political crisis into a violent conflict that risks deep and long-lasting regional repercussions”. Ban Ki-moon told reporters: “The last thing the region and our world need is more of the chaos and crimes we have seen in Libya and Syria.”
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, alluded to the Saudis’ concerns, saying Washington would not stand by as Iran wreaks havoc in the Middle East. Khamenei said the US, which is supporting the Saudi campaign, was siding with the oppressor rather than the oppressed.
Relations between Iran and the US have improved over matters such as the Iranian nuclear programme and the fight against Islamic State in Iraq, but they have opposing views on other issues, such as the Syrian civil war, in which Tehran backs Bashar al-Assad.
There are increasing fears in the Middle East that the fighting in Yemen might spiral out of control, with deeper Saudi involvement provoking the Iranians to follow suit, leading to a full-scale proxy war of an even more sectarian nature. Iran dispatched a destroyer and another warship to waters off Yemen on Wednesday.
“By invading Yemen, Saudis are making a mistake, setting a bad precedent in the region,” Khamenei said. “It’s a huge crime to kill children, destroy houses and obliterate a country’s infrastructure … This is a crime and genocide which can be prosecuted internationally.
“They will not win, they will suffer loss and damage … Their aggression is not acceptable and I warn that they should stop their crimes in Yemen.”
Khamenei compared Saudi Arabia to Israel, Tehran’s sworn enemy, saying that their military campaign in Yemen was similar to Israel’s in Gaza.
But Saudis and the US say Iran also plays a major role in Yemen, a charge Tehran vehemently denies. Speaking on US TV, Kerry said on Wednesday that Washington closely monitors Iranian movement in the Yemeni conflict. The United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, has echoed Kerry’s sentiments.
“There have been – there are, obviously – flights coming from Iran. Every single week there are flights from Iran and we’ve traced it and know this,” Kerry told PBS television. “Iran needs to recognise that the United States is not going to stand by while the region is destabilised or while people engage in overt warfare across lines, international boundaries, in other countries.”
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, has also called the military intervention in Yemen a mistake, but in milder terms.
“A great nation like Yemen will not submit to bombing. Come, let us all think about ending war. Let us think about a ceasefire,” he said. “Let us accept that the future of Yemen will be in the hands of the people of Yemen, not anyone else.”
At least 643 people, including children, have died and thousands wounded since the violence erupted in Yemen last year. On Thursday alone, at least 20 Houthi rebels were killed in southern Yemen in eight dawn air raids by Saudi fighter jets. According to the UN agency for children’s rights, Unicef, about 30% of fighters in the armed groups were minors. “We are seeing children in battle, at checkpoints and unfortunately among [those] killed and injured,” Julien Harneis, Unicef’s representative in Yemen, said on Thursday.
Saudi Arabia, which launched their air strikes last month, is backed by Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and the UAE, who all fear Iranian control of Yemen. Gulf Arabs often complain about Iran’s increasing influence in Iraq and Syria, though the exact extent of Iranian support for rebel forces in Yemen is unclear.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, met Rouhani and Khamenei in Tehran last week to discuss Yemen, among other regional issues. He published an article on Thursday warning that the Islamic world is at the risk of “disintegration” due to sectarian conflicts between Sunnis and Shias in the region.
“You can have a different denomination [of Islam] but if you seek to impose one denomination on another you will break up the ummah [Islamic community],” he warned.
Adam Baron from the European Council on Foreign Relations struck a cautious note on the notion that the conflict in Yemen is an Iranian-Saudi proxy war. “Houthis are not Iranian proxies: the fact of the matter is that Houthis are motivated and deeply rooted in Yemen and their decision-making is largely, if not entirely, rooted in Yemeni local issues,” he said.
“I do not see this as a proxy war. That being said, I think what we are seeing is a regionalisation of an internal political conflict. It was sort of started by Iran but the main catalyst for the regionalisation of this is the Saudi military campaign.
“The reason why we are seeing such language from the supreme leader is that his hands – or rather the Iranian government’s hands – are pretty tied at this point. In terms of providing financial or military support for the Houthis, it’s very hard to see how they would be able to do it. Making these strong statements are almost their only option.”
Baron said Khamenei and Erdogan were speaking about a potential political solution to the Yemeni crisis on Wednesday. “I’m under the impression that that is in Tehran’s interest and Riyadh’s, as well as all Yemeni factions and regular Yemenis.”
