Iran to protest Saudi ‘bombing’ of Yemen embassy to UNSC

Tehran: Iran today said it would protest to the UN Security Council after it accused Saudi warplanes of deliberately bombing its embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

“During an air raid by Saudi Arabia against Sanaa, a rocket fell near our embassy and unfortunately one of our guards was seriously wounded,” Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said, quoted by official news agency IRNA.

“We will inform the Security Council of the details of this attack within several hours,” he said.

“Saudi Arabia is responsible for the security of our diplomats and of our embassy in Sanaa,” he said.

A Saudi-led Arab coalition has been carrying out air strikes since March in Yemen against Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels.

The Iranian accusations came days after Saudi Arabia broke off diplomatic ties with Iran in response to an arson attack on its own embassy in Tehran by protesters infuriated by Riyadh’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.

Several allies of Saudi Arabia, including Bahrain, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia followed suit in cutting ties, as the crisis between the Middle East’s foremost Sunni and Shiite Muslim drew international concern.

Abdollahian today also rejected Bahrain’s claim of Iranian involvement in an alleged “terrorist” cell that was plotting attacks in the tiny Gulf kingdom.

Bahrain announced yesterday it had dismantled the cell, which it said was linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hezbollah militia and was planning to carry out a series of bombings.

“There is absolutely no link between this fabricated scenario and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Abdollahian said.