RIYADH: Saudi Arabia spearheaded Arab criticism of Israel’s early Friday attacks on Iran, which killed at least two senior military leaders and attacked several locations it connected to the nation’s nuclear program, escalating the likelihood of a full-scale conflict between the two acrimonious Middle Eastern rivals. Hossein Salami, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was murdered in the first attacks, along with two nuclear scientists and another senior IRGC officer.
It seemed to be the worst assault Iran has experienced since the conflict with Iraq in the 1980s. The Kingdom “expresses its strong condemnation and denunciation of the blatant Israeli aggressions against the brotherly Islamic Republic of Iran, which undermine its sovereignty and security and constitute a clear violation of international laws and norms,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday, marking the first Arab country to condemn the attacks.
“The Kingdom affirms that the international community and the (UN) Security Council bear a great responsibility to immediately halt this aggression, even as it condemns these heinous attacks,” the statement continued. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Israel would face “severe punishment” for the strikes, which coincided with building tensions over Iran’s quickly developing nuclear program and seemed destined to spark retaliation. Israel’s military announced hours later that it had started intercepting retaliatory Iranian drone launches.
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