Iran Providing Yemen with Advisory Assistance Not Missiles: Top Commander
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri said the country’s military officers are only offering advisory assistance to popular forces in Yemen, rejecting reports that Tehran has supplied missiles to the impoverished Arab country.
“We are giving Yemen’s popular Army advisory and intellectual assistance and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) is in charge of this,” General Baqeri told China’s Phoenix TV during a recent visit to Beijing.
He further stressed that the Islamic Republic will stand by the Yemeni people until the Saudi-led aggression comes to an end.
The top general also rejected claims that Iran has provided the Arab country with missiles, saying, “Today, Yemen is under a complete blockade (by Saudi Arabia), which has blocked all paths and prevented the delivery of food and even medicine”.
“How can one transfer several-meter-long missiles to Yemen when it is not possible to send medicine (to the Arab country)?” he asked.
In an interview with Tasnim in late August, Yemen’s Minister of Information Zaifullah al-Shami highlighted the Yemeni nation’s strong resistance to the acts of aggression by the Saudi-led military coalition.
“Yemen’s missile and military power is growing day by day,” the minister stressed, adding that his country is working on several new achievements which the aggressors could not tolerate.
Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
Official UN figures say that more than 15,000 people have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led bombing campaign began.
The Saudi war has impacted over seven million children in Yemen who now face a serious threat of famine, according to UNICEF figures. Over 6,000 children have either been killed or sustained serious injuries since 2015, UN children’s agency said. The humanitarian situation in the country has also been exacerbated by outbreaks of cholera, polio, and measles.