Iran Says Yemen Strikes ‘Contradict’ US, UK Policy

Tehran, Iran — Iran on Sunday denounced the latest U.S. and U.K. strikes on targets in Yemen saying they “contradict” their declared intention of avoiding a wider Middle East conflict.

These attacks are “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, said in a statement.

He accused the United States and Britain of “fueling chaos, disorder, insecurity and instability” by supporting Israel in its war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Further strikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels in response to the group’s attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea is “a threat to international peace and security,” Kanaani said. 

On Saturday the U.S. and the U.K. struck dozens of targets in Yemen over Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, which the rebels say are in solidarity with Palestinians in war-battered Gaza.

The previous day, the U.S. military struck targets in Syria and Iraq, in retaliation for a January 28 drone attack on a base in Jordan that killed three U.S. soldiers.

President Joe Biden has blamed “radical Iran-backed militant groups” for that attack but said the United States does not seek a wider conflict in the Middle East.

“I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for,” Biden said on Tuesday.
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