Archives for 2018

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have fired dozens of missiles into Saudi Arabia in response to coalition air attacks [File image, courtesy of Al Masirah]

by Al Jazeera

Saudi Arabia says it has intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards the country by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The Saudi statement came just hours after the Yemeni group claimed to have launched the attack.

State-owned TV channel Al Ekhbariya reported on Friday that Saudi defence forces intercepted the missile over Najran, a region straddling the kingdom’s southern border with Yemen, before it could hit its intended target.

Al Masirah, a TV network run by the Houthi rebels, said the group claimed responsibility for the attack via Twitter, saying it had a “successful launch of a short range ballistic missile at a military target in Saudi Arabia”.

It said the the rebels fired a Qaher-2M missile of Soviet origin towards a military installation in Najran. The missile has a range of up to 400km.

Saudi retaliation
Al Masirah also said that within hours of the missile attack, the Saudi coalition bombing Yemen retaliated with several air raids on Saada, an impoverished Houthi stronghold.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the network’s claims.

Saudi Arabia, supported by the US and other countries, have launched more than 15,000 air attacks against Houthi targets since March 2015, while dozens of missiles have been fired into the kingdom from Yemen.

Last month, the Houthis said that one of their missiles hit a military target inside Saudi Arabia, without specifying the location.

Saudi officials, however, said they intercepted the missile.

The Saudi-led coalition has previously accused Iran of helping arm the Houthis, accusing Iran of “flagrant military aggression” and “manufacturing and smuggling [missiles] to the Houthi militias in Yemen for the purpose of attacking the Kingdom, its people, and vital interests”.

Iran has repeatedly rejected allegations of arming the Houthis, calling them “malicious, irresponsible, destructive and provocative”.

The war in Yemen, the region’s poorest country, started in 2014 after Houthi rebels seized control of the capital Sanaa and began pushing south towards the country’s third-biggest city, Aden.

Concerned by the rise of the Houthi rebels, believed to be backed by Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran, the kingdom and a coalition of Sunni Arab states launched an intervention in 2015 in the form of a massive air campaign aimed at reinstalling President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government.

Since then, more than 10,000 people have been killed and at least 40,000 wounded, mostly from Saudi-led air attacks.

Khoshroo accused Washington of inciting Iranians to ‘engage in disruptive acts’ [Mike Segar/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Iran has accused the US of “inciting” anti-government protests that have gripped the country, and said the Trump administration had “flouted” international law and the principles of the UN charter by supporting the unrest in a series of “absurd tweets”.

In a letter sent to Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general, on Wednesday, Gholamali Khoshroo, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, said the US had “crossed every limit” by “inciting Iranians to engage in disruptive acts”.

“[The US] has stepped up its acts of intervention in a grotesque way in Iran’s internal affairs under the pretext of providing support for sporadic protests, which in several instances were hijacked by infiltrators,” Press TV quoted Khoshroo as saying.

He criticised US President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence directly for their “numerous absurd tweets”, that called on Iranians to “change their government”.

“The US Department of State went so far as admitting that the US government wants to encourage protesters in Iran to change their government, admitting that the US is engaged in interfering with the internal affairs of Iran through Facebook and Twitter,” Khoshroo said.

The Trump administration is yet to respond to the letter.

At least 22 people have died and more than 450 arrested since anti-government demonstrations erupted across Iran on December 28.

The protests, which have focused on economic and political grievances, have been the largest display of public dissent since pro-reform rallies swept the country in 2009.

Trump, who has banned Iranians from travelling to the US, praised the demonstrators for “finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime” in a tweet earlier this week, and warned that “the world is watching”.

The Trump administration is yet to respond to the letter.

At least 22 people have died and more than 450 arrested since anti-government demonstrations erupted across Iran on December 28.

The protests, which have focused on economic and political grievances, have been the largest display of public dissent since pro-reform rallies swept the country in 2009.

Trump, who has banned Iranians from travelling to the US, praised the demonstrators for “finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime” in a tweet earlier this week, and warned that “the world is watching”.

Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, said on Tuesday that the US would seek an emergency session of the Security Council and the Human Rights Council to discuss the situation in Iran.

“The people of Iran are crying out for freedom,” she said. “All freedom-loving people must stand with their cause.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has blamed external “enemies” for heightening unrest in the country.

Money, weapons, politics and intelligence services have been used by these “enemies” to undermine stability, he said on Tuesday.

Pro-government rallies
Tens of thousands of Iranians took part in nationwide pro-government demonstrations on Wednesday.

The rallies took place in at least 10 cities, including the Iranian capital of Tehran.

TV pictures showed people carrying banners in support of the government and shouting slogans against the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The footage, carried by state media, was in broad contrast to the coverage of the past week’s demonstrations against Iran’s leadership.

Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Tehran, said, a “few small and short-lived anti-government rallies have taken place overnight Wednesday in a few cities around the country.

“[But] what really is at play today are the pro-government, pro-establishment demonstrations and marches being held in major cities across Iran. This really is an effort by the government to bookend this whole episode.

“It illustrates to a domestic audience, but also to anyone watching from outside, that the government does enjoy support and that there are tens of thousands of people willing to rally on behalf of the government.”

Following the demonstrations, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), declared unrest in the country as over.

“Today, we can announce the end of the sedition,” Jafari said, quoted on the Guards’ website.

“A large number of the troublemakers at the centre of the sedition, who received training from counter-revolutionaries … have been arrested and there will be firm action against them,” he added.

The UN’s human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has urged Iran to handle the situation “with great care” in order to prevent further violence and unrest.

“It is incumbent on the authorities that their actions do not provoke a downward spiral of violence, as occurred in 2009,” he said on Wednesday in a statement.

“The authorities must take all steps to ensure that this does not happen again.”