Iran decries Saudi role in Yemen

With Saudi Arabia beefing up its forces along the frontier with Yemen, rival Iran on Monday unleashed some of its harshest rhetoric yet in denouncing the monthold Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen’s Shiite Muslim rebels.

Dozens of airstrikes hit Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and the southwestern provincial capital of Dhale, while street fighting raged in the central crossroads city of Taiz and the southern port of Aden, officials and residents said.

The Saudi-led air offensive eased last week after Riyadh declared an end to the first phase of its military operation, but has re- sumed with renewed fury.

Daily life in Yemen has become a tapestry of misery, with aid groups and ordinary people describing overflowing hospitals and growing shortages of food, clean water and medical supplies. Trash is piling up in the streets, crucial infrastructure has been destroyed, and electricity is intermittent at best. Schools are closed and tempers regularly flare into brawls.

The conflict in Yemen — which pits Iran-allied insurgents known as Houthis and their supporters against forces loyal to exiled President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi — has dramatically heightened regional and sectarian tensions between Sunni Mus- lim Saudi Arabia and Shiite Muslim Iran.

On Monday, the head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, accused the Saudis of trampling on Islamic values by intervening militarily in Yemen, and likened the kingdom’s monarchy to arch-enemy Israel. Praising the Houthi uprising, he expressed hope that “the next wave, God willing, will lead to the toppling of the House of Saud.”

Jafari’s outburst came hours after Saudi Arabia announced that the first elements of its tribally based National Guard had arrived in the frontier zone, reinforcing regular army troops and the border guard.