A top member of Iran's parliament called Saudi Arabia's King Salman a traitor to Islam on Thursday, a sharp escalation in rhetoric over Riyadh's air strikes against an Iranian-allied militia that has seized much of neighbouring Yemen.
Although a five-day humanitarian truce was largely holding, and aid was getting to some of the millions of Yemenis deprived of food, fuel and medicine, tensions were also mounting over an Iranian relief ship, which Saudi Arabia insisted on inspecting. Yemen is the latest theatre in Shi'ite Muslim Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia's tussle for power across the Middle East, which has played out along largely sectarian lines but has not yet led to direct confrontation between the Gulf powers.
A top member of Iran's parliament called Saudi Arabia's King Salman a traitor to Islam on Thursday, a sharp escalation in rhetoric over Riyadh's air strikes against an Iranian-allied militia that has seized much of neighbouring Yemen. Although a five-day humanitarian truce was largely holding, and aid was getting to some of the millions of Yemenis deprived of food, fuel and medicine, tensions were also mounting over an Iranian relief ship, which Saudi Arabia insisted on inspecting. Yemen is the latest theatre in Shi'ite Muslim Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia's tussle for power across the Middle East, which has played out along largely sectarian lines but has not yet led to direct confrontation between the Gulf powers.
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