An unusual flight has surfaced tying together Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthi rebels on the day Ali Khamenei's funeral proceedings began in Tehran, journalist Itai Blumenthal reported Friday.
According to Blumenthal, a Mahan Air passenger flight, IRM1198, took off Friday morning from Sanaa to Tehran, a route that has seen almost no direct traffic since Israeli strikes battered Sanaa's airport. Assessments cited by Blumenthal indicate the flight was carrying senior Houthi officials traveling to attend Khamenei's funeral in the Iranian capital.
Shortly afterward, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree announced that Saudi fighter jets had entered Yemeni airspace and attempted to prevent what he described as an Iranian civilian aircraft from proceeding to Tehran. Saree claimed the Houthis responded by firing surface to air missiles at the Saudi jets, forcing them to turn back.
Saree issued a threat against what he called the criminal Saudi enemy, warning that any further incursion into Yemeni airspace or any strike would trigger what he termed a comprehensive response against Saudi airports and critical infrastructure on land and at sea.
International coverage of the funeral period corroborated the broad outline of the incident. Yemen's Houthi run armed forces said they confronted Saudi warplanes that they said tried to prevent an Iranian aircraft from completing its journey, according to a statement from Saree carried by multiple outlets tracking the funeral proceedings in Tehran.
The episode comes as Iran holds days of funeral ceremonies for Khamenei, who was killed in the opening strikes of the US-Israeli war on Iran in February, with authorities in Tehran shutting down airspace over the city at points during the week and expecting millions of mourners at the Grand Mosalla complex. Saudi Arabia, which brokered a rapprochement with Iran several years ago, has in recent months separately warned Tehran that its tolerance for attacks tied to the Houthis and other Iranian aligned forces in the region is limited.
Neither Riyadh nor Tehran had issued an official statement on the alleged airspace incident at the time of writing.
