Khamenei also denounced Saudi Arabia for its role leading a coalition of Sunni-ruled Arab states against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, comparing it to the pagans who ruled the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam in the seventh century.

His speech to a meeting of Iranian leaders and diplomats from the Muslim world, reported by the state news agency IRNA, brought the issues of political and religious legitimacy squarely into the struggle between the two regional powers.

“Yemen, Bahrain and Palestine are oppressed, and we protect oppressed people as much as we can,” IRNA quoted him as saying.

“Those people who bring suffering to Yemeni families during sacred months are even worse than the ancient pagans of Mecca,” he said at the event for the holiday of Lailat al-Miraj, when Islam says the Prophet Mohammad visited heaven and met Jesus, Abraham, Moses and other prophets.