Saudi Arabia Denies Landing Permission to Iranian Plane in Sanaa

Iran's state news agency announced that Saudi Arabia denied an Iranian plane landing permission at Sanaa airport, Yemen's capital, on Thursday, April 23, threatening military action, forcing the plane to land in Bandar Abbas instead. According to the news agency, the denial of landing came despite prior coordination by Iranian foreign ministry officials with Saudi Arabia. On the same day, Yemen's foreign minister accused the Islamic Republic of attempting to break Yemen's maritime blockade to deliver supplies to Shiite rebels. Riyadh Yaseen, Yemen's foreign minister, speaking in Manama, Bahrain, stated that Iran is 'desperately trying to violate Yemen's maritime blockade.' Meanwhile, according to the news agency, the plane that had to land in Bandar Abbas was carrying '95 Yemeni patients treated in Tehran along with humanitarian aid including water, food, and medicine.' The passengers had been injured prior to Saudi military intervention in Yemen during 'al-Qaeda terrorist operations in various Yemeni cities.' Reports indicate that after three suicide bombings on March 20, 2015, in mosques in Sanaa, 52 of the injured were transferred to the 'Baqiatollah' hospital in Tehran, affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The news agency reported that the plane has landed in Bandar Abbas and will fly to Sanaa again once 'appropriate conditions' are met. The news agency has not provided further updates on the plane's status. The Saudi-led regional coalition resumed airstrikes against Houthi rebels in central and southern Yemen on Wednesday, April 1, just one day after announcing their cessation. Iranian officials, who have been accused of supporting the Houthis, have repeatedly protested Saudi military intervention in Yemen, predicting that Saudi actions will fail. The Shiite Houthi rebels overthrew the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen's internationally recognized president, last year by seizing Sanaa. Mr. Hadi fled to the southern city of Aden in February and sought refuge in Saudi Arabia following the rebels' advance. The news agency's report on the denial of the Iranian plane's landing comes as a U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that a convoy of Iranian ships, likely carrying advanced weapons to Yemen, has changed course and returned. On the same day, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran's deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, dismissed allegations of Iranian arms supplies to Ansar Allah (the Houthis) as 'completely baseless,' adding that the presence of the Iranian military fleet in international waters of the Gulf of Aden is in accordance with international regulations. He emphasized, 'Tehran will expedite the delivery of medicine and humanitarian aid to the people of Yemen with the help of the Red Crescent; hundreds of severely injured individuals in Yemen are awaiting assistance.' The United States has recently dispatched an aircraft carrier and a guided missile destroyer to the waters around Yemen. The USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier and the USS Normandy guided missile destroyer are monitoring Iranian naval activities from 320 kilometers away by air.