Saudi Arabia said Monday that Lebanon has declared war on the Kingdom because of hostile actions from Hezbollah.
Saudi Arabia said Monday that Lebanon has declared war on the Kingdom because of hostile actions from Hezbollah.
“We will treat the government of Lebanon as a government declaring a war because of Hezbollah militias,” Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan said Monday, according to Al Arabiya .
Saudi King Salman has reportedly informed Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Haririm, who is trying to resign from his post, of all the aggressive actions Hezbollah militias have apparently taken against Saudi Arabia.
“We expect the Lebanese government to act to deter Hezbollah,” Sabhan said.
Sabhan’s rhetoric against Lebanon and Hezbollah is fundamentally rooted in its rising conflict with Iran. For Sabhan, “Lebanon is kidnapped by the militias of Hezbollah and behind it is Iran.”
Saudi officials have also accused Iran of being behind the Shiite rebels in Yemen firing a missile over the weekend at an airport located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital city. Saudi said experts in military technology combed through the debris and determined that Iran had manufactured the missiles and subsequently smuggled them to the Houthis. American officials in the past have also claimed that Iran has smuggled weapons to the Houthis.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia believes Iran is responsible for the civil war in Yemen in the first place, which has claimed the lives of 10,000 over two years. Currently, the north region of Yemen is held by Houthi rebels aligned with Iran.
Iran has denied sending the rebels any missiles and stated that they were developed locally by the Yemeni military.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir also noted on Twitter that the Kingdom has the right to respond to hostile acts from Iran.
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