Iran’s deputy foreign minister denied US claims on Saturday that Tehran was complicit in the rebels’ attacks on commercial ships in Yemen, claiming the organization was operating independently.
According to the Pentagon, the Huthi rebels in Yemen, who are affiliated with Iran, have launched over 100 drone and missile attacks against 10 merchant vessels in the Red Sea. They are acting in sympathy with the Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is engaged in combat with Hamas terrorists.
The Huthis, who control a large portion of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, were supplied drones, missiles, and tactical intelligence by Iran, according to US intelligence disclosed by the White House on Friday.
“The resistance (Huthis) has its own tools… and acts in accordance with its own decisions and capabilities,” said Ali Bagheri, Iran’s deputy foreign minister.
“The fact that certain powers, such as the Americans and the Israelis, suffer strikes from the resistance movement… should in no way call into question the reality of the strength of the resistance in the region,” he told Mehr news agency.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Washington had previously asked Iran to advise Yemeni rebels not to act against US and Israeli interests in the region.
“We have made it clear to the Americans that these groups have decided, based on their interests, on how to support Gaza,” said Amir-Abdollahian during a conference in Tehran in support of Palestinians.
“We have not and will not order them to stop the attacks.”
The Gaza Strip has endured 11 weeks of Israeli air and ground attacks that killed more than 20,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run coastal territory.
After Hamas carried out a cross-border strike on October 7 that killed almost 1,140 people in Israel, largely civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli numbers, Israel has promised to defeat the terrorist organization.
About 250 persons were also kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists; according to Israel, 129 of them are still in Gaza.
Although praising the October 7 attack on Israel, Iran—which provides financial and military backing to Hamas—denies any involvement.
The Islamic republic has issued several warnings about the conflict’s potential to get larger, and Amir-Abdollahian declared last month that the war’s ferocity made its expansion “inevitable”.
President Ebrahim Raisi has said Iran sees it as “its duty to support the resistance groups” but insisted that they “are independent in their opinion, decision and action”.
Last month, Tehran dismissed as “invalid” Israel’s accusations that Huthi rebels were acting on Tehran’s “guidance” when they seized a Red Sea ship owned by an Israeli businessman.
