Russia blames US pressure on allies for expulsions

TASHKENT: Moscow on Tuesday charged Washington had put "colossal pressure" on allies to expel scores of Russian diplomats, and vowed to retaliate.

"This is the result of colossal pressure, colossal blackmail which is the main instrument of Washington on the international arena," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Uzbekistan.

"We'll respond, have no doubt! No one wants to put up with such loutish behaviour and we won't."

At least 116 alleged agents working under diplomatic cover were ordered out by 22 governments on Monday, dwarfing similar measures in even the most notorious Cold War spying disputes.

The expulsions were a response to the poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury on March 4.

Expulsions of Russian diplomats were ordered by the United States Canada and Australia as well as a number of European Union countries, Albania and Ukraine.

The row has plunged Russia's relations with the West to new lows amid ongoing tensions over Ukraine and Syria.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference on Afghanistan in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent, Lavrov said the expulsions justified Russia's view that there are "few independent countries" remaining in Europe.

Comments by British Prime Minister Theresa May blaming Russia for the poisoning were "simply an affront to the system of Anglo-saxon justice system," Lavrov added.

Britain had urged allies to take strong action in response to the attack that left former Russian spy Skripal and his daughter in critical condition.

The United States responded particularly strongly, ordering 60 Russians to leave embassies and consulates and shutting down the Russian consulate general in Seattle. Australia also joined in the coordinated diplomatic move, expelling two Russian diplomats on Tuesday that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said were "undeclared intelligence officers". UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is closely following the US government's decision to expel 60 Russian diplomats and will engage "as required" with the governments concerned, a UN spokesman has said.

"We have seen the announcement by the US Government of its decision to take action against the certain diplomats of the Russian Federation in the US, Deputy UN Spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters at the daily press briefing on Monday. He said he can confirm that the United States Mission to the UN informed the UN Secretariat of its decision to take action under Section 13(b) of the UN-US Headquarters Agreement with respect to certain members of the Permanent Mission of Russia to the United Nations.

"This action may require those members to leave the country, Haq said, adding that the world body will not comment further on the issue at this stage due to the "sensitivity" of the ongoing matter.

He added that the Secretary General will closely follow the matter and engage as appropriate with the governments concerned.

The Trump administration ordered the expulsion of 60 Russians from the US, following similar actions taken by other countries in the wake of the allegation by the United Kingdom that Russia was behind an attack using a deadly nerve-agent in Salisbury on March 4 that left former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, hospitalized in critical condition. RIYADH: A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia has threatened retaliation against archfoe Iran, accusing the Shiite power of being behind a barrage of Yemeni rebel missile attacks on the kingdom.

Saudi forces said they intercepted seven missiles on Sunday, including over the capital Riyadh, in a deadly escalation that coincided with the third anniversary of the coalition's intervention in Yemen.

Displaying wreckage at a news conference in Riyadh of what it said were fragments of those ballistic missiles, the coalition claimed forensic analysis showed they were supplied to Huthi rebels by their ally Iran.

"The missiles launched against Saudi territory were smuggled from Iran," coalition spokesman Turki al-malki told reporters on Monday.

We "reserve the right to respond against Iran at the right time and right place", he added.

The missile strikes resulted in the first reported fatality from Huthi fire in the Saudi capital.

Egyptian national Abdulmoteleb Ahmed, 38, died instantly in his bed when what appeared to be burning shrapnel struck his ramshackle room in Riyadh's Um al-hammam district, leaving a gaping hole in the roof, witnesses told by AFP at the site.

Three other Egyptian labourers in the same room were wounded and hospitalised, they said.

The Iran-aligned Huthis said on their Al-masirah television that Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport was among the targets.

Malki alleged the rebels in Sanaa were using the airport there to launch missiles on Saudi territory, adding the coalition had seized a number of smuggled weapons.

Iran has repeatedly denied arming the Huthis in Yemen, despite claims by the United States and Saudi Arabia that the evidence of an arms connection is irrefutable.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen on March 26, 2015 to try to restore the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after the Shiite Huthis and their allies took over large parts of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

Hours after the missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, hundreds of thousands of Huthi rebel supporters flooded the streets of Yemen's capital on Monday to mark three years of war.

Sanaa's Sabaeen Square was a sea of Yemeni flags as rebel authorities ordered all schools and government offices shut for the anniversary. Huthi supporters carried portraits of rebel chief Abdulmalik al-huthi and speakers blasted out a fiery speech by Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah Shiite movement, praising the "steadfastness" of the Yemeni people. War songs, poems and speeches condemning the United States, the main arms supplier for the Saudiled coalition, echoed across the square. TEHRAN: Iranian officials and analysts on Tuesday rejected claims of supplying weapons to Yemeni rebels and mocked Saudi warnings of retaliation for a weekend missile attack.

But while deriding the threat of direct Saudi military action, conservative analysts in Tehran did express worry about what they said were increasingly coordinated efforts by the United States and its allies to destabilise the country.

The latest flashpoint in the ever-volatile region came on Sunday when Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen fired seven missiles into Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh said the missiles were Iranian-made and vowed "to respond against Iran at the right time and right place". Iran supports the Huthis, but denies any military ties. "The aim of such claims by Saudi Arabia is to divert public opinion from the atrocities (they) are committing in Yemen," said Yadollah Javani, a political officer for Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, according to the conservative Tasnim news agency.