TEHRAN, Iran
Consequences of a Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen pose a danger for the Islamic world, Iran's Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Saturday.
"The airstrikes and igniting sectarian disputes are perilous, which will shed more blood in Yemen," Rafsanjani was quoted by Iran’s official IRNA news agency as saying at the first session of the Expediency Council.
Rafsanjani said the beginning of a war and its impact in the Islamic world are also perilous, and added Yemen would turn into a “quagmire for the aggressors,” calling the operation a "grave and strategic" mistake.
He also said the Saudi officials’ calculus contained political and military mistakes regarding Yemen and Saudi authorities entered a war with a fragile coalition without taking into account the consequences across the region.
The Saudi-led coalition has been pounding the positions of the Houthi group across Yemen since March 25.
Fractious Yemen has remained in turmoil since last September, when the Houthis overran capital Sanaa, from which they have sought to extend their influence to other parts of the country.
In addition, Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani commented on the coalition warplanes' airstrikes, which he said would weaken the Islamic world as both aggressors and oppressed parties face a waste of energy and resources.
Larijani was quoted by IRNA as saying that the offensive did not accord with Islamic law and wisdom, because Islamic countries have limited energy sources, adding: "Instead of supporting Muslim countries, we are spending our energy in detriment of us."
The Saudi-led coalition says the campaign is in response to appeals by embattled President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi -- now in Saudi Arabia -- to "save the [Yemeni] people from the Houthi militias."
The Houthis, for their part, decry the offensive as unwarranted "Saudi-American aggression" against the Yemeni people.
Some Gulf States accuse Shiite Iran of supporting Yemen's Houthi insurgency.
