ZCZC
BFF-21
YEMEN-CONFLICT-SAUDI-IRAN
Iran condemns Saudi-led air strikes on Yemen
TEHRAN, May 17, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Iran condemned as a “crime” Friday a wave
of air strikes led by its arch rival Saudi Arabia on rebel-held areas of
Yemen.
The Thursday strikes followed a rebel drone attack that closed one of the
kingdom’s main oil pipelines earlier this week and that Riyadh said was
carried out on Tehran’s orders.
“We call on the international community and human rights groups to act on
their commitments and stop such crimes from happening again by any means
possible,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi said.
“Countries supporting the aggressor forces in Yemen by providing weapons
and bombs to the coalition have a shared responsibility for this crime and
must be held accountable,” he added in a statement on Telegram.
Mousavi did not comment on Riyadh’s allegation that Tehran was behind
Tuesday’s rebel attack on the Saudi pipeline.
Aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that at least four people
were killed and 48 wounded in coalition air strikes on Yemen’s rebel-held
capital Sanaa on Thursday.
The UN’s humanitarian office OCHA said later that five children had been
killed and 16 wounded in the strikes.
The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 when President Abedrabbo
Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile as the rebels were poised to take his last
toehold Aden after overrunning most of the rest of the country.
Its air campaign on rebel-held areas has been repeatedly criticised by the
United Nations and human rights groups for its high civilian death toll.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1504 hrs