Iran’s IRGC: Yemenis firing own missiles at Saudi Arabia

The chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) dismissed allegations leveled by the US and its allies about the Islamic Republic’s provision of missiles to Yemeni forces.

“Missiles fired at Saudi Arabia belong to Yemen which have been overhauled and their range have been increased,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said on Sunday.

He added that there is no possibility at all that the Islamic Republic could transfer missiles to Yemen, Press TV reported.

He said the US and its puppets have so far spread many lies and leveled many allegations against Iran.

“How is it possible to send weapons, especially missiles, to a country which is fully under siege, and there is even no possibility to send medical aid and foodstuffs?” the IRGC commander asked.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on December 14 appeared in a staged show in front of a large and charred tube that she claimed was “concrete evidence” that Iran was providing missiles to Yemeni forces fighting against Saudi Arabia’s war of aggression on their country.

Responding to Haley’s allegations, Iran’s UN mission categorically dismissed as “unfounded” her claim that a missile fired at Saudi Arabia from Yemen was supplied by the Islamic Republic.

In a statement released following Haley’s allegations, the mission said, “These accusations seek also to cover up for the Saudi war crimes in Yemen, with US complicity, and divert international and regional attention from the stalemate war of aggression against the Yemenis that has so far killed more than 10,000 civilians, displaced three million, crippled Yemen’s infrastructure and health system and pushed the country to the brink of the largest famine the world has seen for decades, as the UN has warned.”

On December 16, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed as “baseless” the US allegation that Tehran supplies missiles to Yemen, saying it was an attempt by Washington to whitewash its war crimes in the Middle East.

Zarif said such claims aimed to deflect attention from US complicity in crimes committed in the Middle East, particularly in Yemen, and from US President Donald Trump’s “very dangerous move” to recognize Beit-ul-moqaddas as Israel’s “capital.”

A Saudi Arabian-led coalition launched a war against Yemen in 2015 and has ever since been indiscriminately hitting targets in the country. Yemeni Houthi fighters have been firing missiles in retaliatory attacks against Saudi targets every now and then.

On November 4, a missile fired from Yemen targeted King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, reaching the Saudi capital for the first time.