Supplying rebels in Yemen with missiles was a “direct military aggression by the Iranian regime,” declared Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz on Tuesday.
In his first direct statements regarding a thwarted missile strike on the Riyadh airport that occurred over the weekend, bin Salman laid the blame for the attempt at the feet of the regime in Tehran, claiming it was “supplying its Houthi militias [in Yemen] with missiles.”
In comments reported by the Saudi Arabian official news agency SPA, the Crown Prince told British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that Iran’s actions “may be considered an act of war against the Kingdom.”
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry dismissed Saudi Arabia’s allegations over the missile strike as “false, irresponsible, destructive and provocative,” the Iranian news agency Tasnim reported Monday.
Bin Salman’s remarks were the latest by the Saudi regime accusing Iran of not only being behind the actions taken in Yemen, but also for its purported behavior in Lebanon.
Iran sponsors Lebanese Hezbollah, the Shiite militant and political group that holds tremendous sway in the Cabinet and as part of a pro-Syrian alliance in Lebanese parliament.
Iran and Hezbollah were blamed by Saad Hariri for meddling in “the internal affairs of Arab countries” when he announced that he was resigning as prime minister of Lebanon on Saturday. Hariri, a Sunni politician with Saudi backing, made the announcement from Riyadh.
“Iran controls the region and the decision-making in both Syria and Iraq,” Hariri said in his announcement. “I want to tell Iran and its followers that it will lose in its interventions in the internal affairs of Arab countries.”
For the Saudis, there would now be “no more distinction between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government,” Saudi minister for Gulf affairs Thamer al-Sabhan said Monday. Hezbollah “has become a tool of death and destruction against Saudi Arabia and participates in all terrorist acts in the Kingdom,” the minister claimed.
Because of this, Saudi Arabia will treat the Lebanese as “a government declaring war,” al-Sabhan told al-Arabiya, the Saudi-backed broadcaster.
While the United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist group, its political wing is the most powerful bloc in Lebanon’s deeply divided coalition government, and several of its politicians are ministers.
It was not clear what this statement would do to Saudi-Lebanese relations, but al-Sabhan said the ramifications “would be severe.”
Saudi Arabia accuses Hezbollah of smuggling missiles into Yemen. The Saudi military was able to intercept the missile before it struck the airport.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claims that Hezbollah militants smuggle weapons through Syria and then Iran before reaching Yemen by sea, even though the coalition has blockaded Yemen’s ports since 2015.
“It was an Iranian missile, launched by Hezbollah from territory occupied by the Houthis in Yemen,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubair told CNN earlier Monday.
Saudi Arabia has waged a years-long military campaign in Yemen in support of the internationally-recognized government that was driven out of the capital by the Houthis.
“Who are the Houthi’s and what are Hezbollah? They are subsidies of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” al-Jubair said.
