As the first full day of a tenuous ceasefire takes hold in Yemen, a top Iranian general has warned both the United States and Saudi Arabia against interferring with a cargo vessel, said to be carrying humanitarian aid, as it continued toward the coast of the war-torn nation.
U.S. and Saudi officials have said Tehran’s sending of the ship, which is travelling under what the Iranians have called the “safeguard” of a naval escort, is provocative amid ongoing hostilities in Yemen, but Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, responded on Iran’s state-operated Al-Alam television late Tuesday by saying that Iran would not be intimidated.
“I bluntly declare that the self-restraint of Islamic Republic of Iran is not limitless,” Gen. Jazayeri was quoted as saying. “Both Saudi Arabia and its novice rulers, as well as the Americans and others, should be mindful that if they cause trouble for the Islamic Republic with regard to sending humanitarian aid to regional countries, it will spark a fire, the putting out of which would definitely be out of their hands.”
On Tuesday, a senior Iranian commander said that Iran’s navy will protect the cargo ship on route to Yemen.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s 34th naval group, which is currently in the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandab Strait, is responsible for supporting Iran’s humanitarian aid cargo ship,” Admiral Hossein Azad told Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Tuesday.
Azad said the naval group includes the Alborz destroyer and the Bushehr logistic ship, which are both currently on a 90-day mission. The ships, he said, are “demonstrating Iran’s naval might” and are designed to “insure the security of international shipping lines and defend [Iranian] interests.”
On Tuesday, U.S. officials declared that Iran should divert its shipment of humanitarian aid across the Red Sea to the African nation of Djibouti.
As the Middle East Eye reported early Wednesday:
The US military is tracking the ship after Tehran reportedly said it would send warships to escort the vessel to Yemen, a Pentagon spokesman, Colonel Steven Warren, told reporters.
The ship, the Iran Shahed, had moved through the Strait of Hormuz and was now in the Gulf of Oman, according to the website marinetraffic.com. But the vessel was not under any naval escort at the moment, Warren said.
“We are monitoring the Iranian ship,” he said. “We are aware of the Iranians’ statement that they plan to escort this ship with warships.”
The state Iranian IRNA news agency earlier quoted a naval commander, Rear Admiral Hossein Azad, saying naval forces would be “safeguarding” the vessel.