Iran says Saudi Arabia is spreading lies and exploiting Islamic sanctities for its own political goals after Riyadh claimed, in an allegation later dismissed, that a ballistic missile by the Yemeni army forces and allied fighters had targeted the holy Saudi city of Mecca.
“By fabricating stories and irrelevant subjects, Saudi Arabia is using religious issues and sanctities for political exploitation,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Tuesday.
Saudis have baselessly leveled such an allegation against Yemen and are currently making efforts to use it as a lever in Muslim countries, he added.
Yemeni army forces and allied fighters from Popular Committees launched a locally designed and manufactured ballistic missile towards an area deep inside Saudi Arabia on October 27 in response to the Riyadh regime’s atrocious aerial bombardments against the crisis-hit Arab country.
Yemeni soldiers and their allies fired a Borkan-1 (Volcano-1) missile towards King Abdulaziz International Airport, located 19 kilometers north of the western Saudi port city of Jeddah.
A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, later told the official Saba news agency that the 12.5-meter-long missile had pounded its target accurately and left massive destruction at the airport.
Saudi media outlets, however, reported that the kingdom’s missile systems intercepted and destroyed the solid propellant and Scud-type missile before it could cause any damage.
The Saudi military, meanwhile, claimed that the Yemeni missile was fired toward the holy city of Mecca, but the Houthi Ansarullah movement has rejected the claim.
Yemen fighters launch these attacks in retaliation to Saudi Arabia’s relentless airstrikes in the country which have been carried out since March 2015. The war was launched in an unsuccessful attempt to reinstate Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who has resigned as Yemen’s president. The UN puts the death toll from the military aggression at over 10,000.
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