Iran comes to defense of Yemeni Shiites, warns Saudis  Christian
Science MonitorNovember 11, 2009   ISTANBUL, Turkey — Iran
offered on Wednesday to take part in a "collective approach" to
resolving an escalating Shiite rebellion in Yemen that has
pulled Saudi Arabia into the fighting. But analysts cautioned
that hostilities did not yet add up to a proxy regional conflict
between Iran and Saudi Arabia.  One day before making the offer,
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned regional
players - though he did not name Saudi Arabia - to keep out of
the Yemen fight. "Those who pour oil on the fire must know that
they will not be spared from the smoke that billows," he said.
The surge of fighting, which has seen Saudi aircraft target
Yemen's Houthi rebels along the border in the past week, has
raised concern that Yemen's long-running local battle was
beginning to follow the traditional sectarian fault-lines that
often define the Persian Gulf rivalry between Shiite Iran and
Sunni Saudi Arabia.  Yet in Ye