\n<\/p>\n
Tehran: Iran on Friday denied having anything to do with attacks by Yemen\u2019s Houthis, a day after Saudi Arabia accused it of having encouraged the group\u2019s recent escalation against the kingdom.<\/strong><\/p>\n Since Yemen\u2019s civil war flared back to life in July, the pro-Iran Houthis have repeatedly struck Saudi targets including Red Sea tankers, oil facilities and Riyadh\u2019s international airport, where 13 people were killed in a single attack last week.<\/p>\n A Saudi-led military coalition has supported Yemen\u2019s internationally recognised government for more than a decade, and reported on Friday having intercepted more missiles and drones as the kingdom comes under sustained attack from the Houthis.<\/p>\n A day earlier, a Saudi foreign ministry official said Iran had \u201cencouraged\u201d the escalation, which Tehran denied.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Islamic Republic of Iran rejects any claim that Iran has played a role in Yemeni (Houthi) operations,\u201d Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cYemen\u2019s armed forces act according to their own interests and assessments, and such claims are not credible to those familiar with relations between Iran and its friends. Nevertheless, Iran does not consider an escalation of tensions to be in the interests of any party,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The Saudi official, deputy minister for public diplomacy Dr. Rayed Krimly, had said the Houthis rejected an offer to meet in Oman at the outset of the latest round of hostilities.<\/p>\n Baqaei however reiterated an offer to mediate between the two sides, saying Tehran \u201chas always been ready to use its good offices to help end the hostilities\u201d.<\/p>\n On Friday, a spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition said it had \u201cintercepted and destroyed three drones in the southern area and Riyadh\u2026 and two cruise missiles over the Red Sea\u201d.<\/p>\n He added that \u201cin the past hours, we intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile over Yanbu\u201d, a city home to the terminus of a major oil pipeline on the Red Sea coast.<\/p>\n The Houthi attacks have proliferated since the group launched a lightning offensive in Yemen in September, seizing strategic government-held territory along the Red Sea coast overlooking a major chokepoint for global shipping.<\/p>\n The pressure on Saudi Arabia, the world\u2019s largest oil exporter, comes as global energy markets were already rattled by Iran\u2019s closure of the Strait of Hormuz at the outset of the wider Middle East war in February.<\/p>\n Yemeni government forces have launched a counteroffensive with Saudi air support to retake areas seized by the Houthis, but have so far failed to reverse their gains.<\/p>\n On Friday, the local security office in Aden, the government\u2019s interim capital, said two missiles landed within the perimeter of the city\u2019s airport, \u201cin the second incident of its kind in less than a week\u201d, adding that no one was killed.<\/p>\n The Houthis, in a statement attributed to a military source, said the attack targeted \u201cthe Saudi forces\u2019 command headquarters\u201d as well as a weapons depot.<\/p>\n The Yemeni information ministry said in a statement that a Yemenia Airways flight from Aden to Cairo narrowly missed being struck.<\/p>\n\u2013 Airport struck \u2013<\/h2>\n