Saudi king receives Lebanese former PM

riyadh — Saudi Arabia and Iran traded fierce accusations over Yemen on Monday, with Riyadh saying a rebel missile attack “may amount to an act of war”.

On Monday, a Saudi-led military coalition battling Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen said it reserved the “right to respond” to the missile attack on Riyadh at the weekend, calling it a “blatant military aggression by the Iranian regime which may amount to an act of war.”

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir said on his Twitter account on Monday that his country reserved the right to respond to what he called Iran’s “hostile actions”. Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed Al Khalifa also tweeted that Iran was the real danger to the region.

The coalition sealed off air, sea and land borders in Yemen, where it has been battling rebels in support of the President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s internationally recognised government since 2015.

“The Coalition Forces Command decided to temporarily close all Yemeni air, sea and land ports,” the statement on SPA said, adding that aid workers and humanitarian supplies would continue to be able to access and exit Yemen. Yemen’s national airline said it has cancelled all flights to the country’s only two functioning airports after the Saudi-led coalition battling Houthi rebels announced the closure of all land, air and sea ports.

Meanwhile, Yemeni forces ended a hostage crisis on Monday with 29 police and six civilians dead, a day after the attack claimed by the Daesh group began with suicide bombings, official sources said. Assailants stormed the criminal investigations unit in Aden, the Yemeni government’s de facto capital, setting it alight and taking hostages after killing two policewomen execution-style. — Reuters, AFP, AP