Iran has warned Saudi Arabia they face the might of the Islamic republic if they continue to make war threats.
President Hassan Rouhani warned Saudi Arabia on Wednesday that it will achieve nothing by threatening the might of Iran, as a war of words between the regional heavyweights intensifies.
He also boasted Donald Trump had ‘mobilised all their allies and achieved nothing’ in a barb at the US.
‘You know the might and place of the Islamic republic. People more powerful than you have been unable to do anything against the Iranian people,’ Rouhani said.
‘The United States and their allies have mobilised all their capabilities against us and achieved nothing.’
Rouhani appeared to be alluding to the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, in which revolutionary Iran successfully resisted an invasion by Saddam Hussein’s regime supported by Gulf Arab and Western governments.
His comments came after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accused Iran of delivering missiles to Yemeni rebels for use against targets in the kingdom that he described as ‘direct military aggression.’
Yesterday, Saudi Arabia moved a step closer to a war with Iran by accusing the country again of ‘direct military aggression’ by supplying militias with rockets.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made the accusation Tuesday, referring to Iran handing ballistic missiles to Yemen’s Huthi rebels, state media reported.
But Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels hit back with threats of retaliation against the ports and airports of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which this week closed the Yemeni land, sea and air borders.
All airports, ports, border crossings and areas of any importance to Saudi Arabia and the UAE will be a direct target of our weapons, which is a legitimate right,’ read a statement released by the rebels’ political office.
Tensions have been rising between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and predominantly Shiite Iran, which are locked in conflicts across the Middle East, from Yemen and Syria to Qatar and Lebanon.
The crisis escalated on Saturday when the kingdom intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile near Riyadh’s international airport.
The Huthi’s statement comes the day after the coalition announced it had closed all of Yemen’s borders, after the missile attach which the Huthis have claimed.
The United Nations on Monday reported the Saudi-led coalition had prevented two humanitarian aid flights from flying to the war-torn country.
Prince Mohammed said: ‘The involvement of Iran in supplying missiles to the Huthis is a direct military aggression by the Iranian regime,’ the Saudi Press Agency quoted the crown prince as saying during a telephone conversation with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
This ‘could be considered as an act of war,’ Prince Mohammed said.
Saudi forces on Saturday intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile near Riyadh international airport, reportedly fired from Yemen by the Huthi rebels.
It was the first reported Huthi missile launch to reach Riyadh and threaten air traffic, underscoring the growing threat posed by the conflict on Saudi Arabia’s southern border.
Riyadh accused Tehran of supplying ballistic missiles to the Huthi rebels, but Iran denied the allegation.
Source » dailymail