Top Saudi clerics condemn Qatar’s Al Jazeera after missile attacks — SPA

By Thomson Reuters Foundation - Mar 27,2018 - Last updated at Mar 27,2018

A photo taken on Monday in Um Al Hammam district in Riyadh shows damages at a home hit by falling shrapnel from Yemeni rebel missiles that were intercepted over the Saudi capital (AFP photo)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia's top religious body accused Qatari-owned Al Jazeera TV of being a "mouthpiece for terrorist organisations", two days after Yemen's Houthi movement fired a barrage of missiles at the kingdom.

The first direct condemnation by the influential state religious body of the pan-Arab TV channel ramps up Riyadh's ten-month-old feud with Doha as tensions with Iran mount.

"History will not forget that Qatar's Al Jazeera was and still is a platform for the propagandists of terrorism and its leaders," the body said in a statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA.

"It is now ... spreading the speeches of the leader of Houthi terrorist militias in coordination with him in a clear targeting of the security of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

A spokesperson from Al Jazeera did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Saudi forces said they had shot down three missiles over Riyadh shortly before midnight. Air defences also repelled missiles fired at the southern Saudi cities of Najran, Jizan and Khamis Mushait, the coalition said.

The Houthi group, which hails from a Shiite Muslim sect, is aligned to Sunni Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran. Saudi military spokesman Colonel Turki Al Malki said on Monday that the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis reserved the right to respond to Iran "at the appropriate time and manner".

The standoff over the TV channel lies at the heart of a dispute that led Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain to cut travel and trade ties with Qatar in June, accusing it of backing extremists and their regional rival, Iran.

They say Qatar uses the channel as a mouthpiece to attack them and back extremist groups across the Arab world and has demanded it be closed down, while Doha insists it is independent and offers uncensored debate absent on other Arab networks.

On Monday, Qatar condemned the attacks on Saudi cities as "a violation of international law".

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