A top member of Iran’s Parliament called Saudi Arabia’s King Salman a traitor to Islam yesterday, a sharp escalation in rhetoric over Riyadh’s air strikes against an Iranian-allied militia that has seized much of neighbouring Yemen.
Although a five-day humanitarian truce was largely holding, and aid was getting to some of the millions of Yemenis deprived of food, fuel and medicine, tensions were also mounting over an Iranian relief ship, which Saudi Arabia insisted on inspecting.
Yemen is the latest theatre in Shi’ite Muslim Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia’s tussle for power across the Middle East, which has played out along largely sectarian lines but has not yet led to direct confrontation between the Gulf powers.
Saudi Arabia and Arab states backed by the West have, since March 26, pounded Houthi rebels aligned with Tehran and forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, aiming to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, now exiled in Riyadh.
While on a visit to Syria, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, branded King Salman “traitor of the noble Haramayn”, or two sacred sites – a play on his official title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.
The Saudi-led coalition has imposed an air and maritime blockade to stop weapons supplies reaching the Houthis and their allies, but Iran said it would not let the Saudis inspect an aid shipment it had sent towards Yemen.
Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri, Deputy Chief of Iran’s Armed Forces, warned of war if the ship was attacked, and Hadi’s government withdrew its ambassador to Tehran.
There were hints of a possible resolution as Iran said it was coordinating with the United Nations to deliver its aid. But Iranian naval vessels also fired shots over a Singapore-flagged ship in international waters in the Gulf, in what a US official said appeared to be a legal dispute.
On the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, the Houthis and forces loyal to Saleh remain entrenched across Yemen. With no party seemingly ready to make concessions for a political solution, relief agencies were making the most of the brief truce, which began on Tuesday. Aid flights were due to start overnight from the United Arab Emirates to the capital Sanaa, which is under Houthi control and has faced air strikes but no ground fighting. The United Nations said aid ships had docked at ports of Hodeida and Aden.
A shipping source in Yemen said at least three ships with fuel and wheat had docked in Hodeida and in al-Mukalla; Saudi Arabia had sent eight truckloads of diesel overland to Hadramout province; and Qatar had sent medicine and food via Djibouti.