Iran to Saudi, UAE:

Sanctities no means for meager goals

Rasa - Iran has called on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to stop exploiting Islamic sanctities as a means for their own trivial goals after Riyadh claimed, in an allegation later dismissed, that a ballistic missile by the Yemeni army forces and allied fighters had targeted the holy Saudi city of Mecca and the UAE rehashed the accusations that Iran is arming the Yemeni forces.

News ID: 424637

Date: 28 October 2016 - 22:53

RNA - “The claim about the Yemenis’ missile attack against the holy Mecca is basically ridiculous,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Friday.

He urged Saudi and Emirati officials not to resort to such divisive and dangerous propaganda stunts in order to make up for their failed policies and defeats.

The Yemeni people are more religiously devout as well as dedicated and committed to the holy Islamic sites than the Wahhabis and rulers who are dependent on the US and the Israeli regime instead of their own nations and Muslim states, Qassemi said.

The Iranian spokesperson expressed confidence that those who regard their own “criminal goals” as more important than the sanctity of Islam's holiest shrine, the Kaaba, will “be further disgraced among Muslims day by day.”

Qassemi’s remarks came after Yemeni army forces and allied fighters from Popular Committees launched a locally designed and manufactured ballistic missile towards an area deep inside Saudi Arabia on Thursday in response to the Riyadh regime’s atrocious aerial bombardments against the crisis-hit Arab country.

Yemeni soldiers and their allies fired a Borkan-1 (Volcano-1) missile towards King Abdulaziz International Airport, located 19 kilometers north of the western Saudi port city of Jeddah.

A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, later told the official Saba news agency that the 12.5-meter-long missile had targeted its target accurately and left massive destruction at the airport.

Saudi media outlets, however, reported that the kingdom’s missile systems intercepted and destroyed the solid propellant and Scud-type missile before it could cause any damage.

The Saudi military also claimed that the Yemeni missile was fired toward the holy city of Mecca, but the Houthi Ansarullah movement has rejected the claim.

Meanwhile, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed on Friday pointed the finger at Iran.

"The Iranian regime is supporting a terrorist group that fires its rockets on Mecca, is this an Islamic regime as it claims?" he tweeted.

Iran has repeatedly rejected claims that it is funneling arms to the Yemeni Houthi Ansarullah fighters.

Saudi Arabia has been engaged in the deadly campaign against Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to bring back the former Yemeni government to power and undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The United Nations puts the death toll from the military aggression at over 10,000.

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