Yemen shaken by war of words

Conflict heightens sectarian rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran

SANAA, Yemen — With Saudi Arabia beefing up its forces along the frontier with Yemen, rival Iran on Monday unleashed some of its harshest rhetoric yet in denouncing the month-old Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen’s Shiite Muslim rebels.

Dozens of airstrikes hit Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and the southwestern provincial capital of Dhale, while street fighting raged in the central city of Taiz and the southern port of Aden, officials and residents said. The Saudi-led air offensive briefly eased last week after Riyadh declared an end to the first phase of its military operation, but has resumed with renewed fury.

Daily life in Yemen has become a misery, with aid groups and ordinary people describing overflowing hospitals, and growing shortages of food, clean water and medical supplies. Trash is piling up in the streets, crucial infrastructure has been destroyed and electricity is intermittent at best. Schools are closed, and tempers regularly flare into brawls and shouting matches.

The conflict in Yemen — which pits Iran-allied insurgents known as Houthis and their supporters against forces loyal to exiled President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi — has dramatically heightened regional and sectarian tensions between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite Muslim Iran.

On Monday, the head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, accused the Saudis of trampling on Islamic values by intervening militarily in Yemen and likened the kingdom’s monarchy to arch-enemy Israel. Praising the Houthi uprising, he expressed hope that “the next wave, God willing, will lead to the toppling of the House of Saud.”