US, Britain in front line of Saudi crimes in Yemen: Iran cleric
A senior Iranian cleric has condemned Saudi Arabia’s recent bloody carnage in the Yemeni capital, saying the United States and Britain spearhead Riyadh's crimes in the impoverished Muslim country.
“Saudi fighter jets pounded a [funeral] hall four times with 800-kilogram bombs,” said Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami during a sermon to worshipers at the weekly Friday Prayers in Tehran.
More than 140 people were killed and over 525 wounded on October 8, when Saudi airstrikes hit a community hall in the south of the capital, where a funeral for the father of Interior Minister Jalal al-Roweishan was being held.
The death toll was one of the largest in a single incident since March 2015, when the Riyadh regime began its deadly campaign to crush the Yemeni Houthi Ansarullah movement and their allies and restore power to the resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.
The Iranian cleric said the US has been supporting the Al Saud regime since the launch of Riyadh's aggression against Yemen, and said, "Over the past 18 months, the US drones have been helping Saudi Arabia round-the-clock."
He reiterated that the Saudi aggression against Yemen has been carried out "under the command of the US and UK."
He condemned the silence of international human rights organizations on the killing of over 10,000 civilians, including children and women, in the Saudi war against Yemen and said, “Neither human beings nor human rights are important to them.”
Khatami also criticized the United Nations for keeping silent on the Saudi crimes in Yemen and said nations must seek the establishment of a “real United Nations” and expressed hope that the Al Saud regime would collapse in the near future.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday that the Saudi attack in the Yemeni capital constitutes an apparent war crime, calling for an independent probe into the act of aggression.
"The clear presence of several hundred civilians strongly suggests that the attack was unlawfully disproportionate," the leading rights group said in a statement.
It also said remnants of munitions found at the site of the Saturday attack showed that they were US made.
The group called for both the US and UK to immediately suspend all arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Iran: US airstrikes on Yemen war crimes, violation of international law
Iran warns against US-Israeli plot to weaken Muslims, dominate region
Leader: Iran neither has nor needs proxy forces
American warplane downed after Yemeni attacks 'baffled' US air defense: Ansarullah
VIDEO | Yemenis praise the military for its successful operations against Israel
VIDEO | Israel continues to bomb Gaza homes
VIDEO | An insider's view of the country: Meybod City in Yazd
‘All wars have rules. All of those rules have been broken’ by Israel
VIDEO | Report flags India’s violation of rights of Rohingya detainees
Turkey's foreign minister meets Syria's de facto leader in Damascus
VIDEO | US Syria plots
PressTV NEWSLETTER
now
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website
