2024-02-17T05:37:48+00:00
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/ A report published by the American newspaper “Wall Street Journal” stated that the Iranian military industries are witnessing growth, which has made the country a wide source of cheap advanced weapons that armed militias in the Middle East and even some countries rely on.
The newspaper report indicated that this matter provokes the ire of the United States and its allies in the Middle East and beyond, including in Ukraine.
The newspaper’s information indicates that Russia bought thousands of drones from Iran in 2022, which it used in its war against Ukraine, at a time when Tehran increased its support for arming militias in the Middle East.
The newspaper quoted American officials as saying that the most prominent Iranian arms export is the Shahed drone, which can carry explosives.
The report indicated that this drone was used to kill three American soldiers in Jordan in late January, to which the United States responded with a series of strikes targeting pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria.
In the latest US military operation, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Thursday that a Coast Guard ship in the Arabian Sea had seized a shipment of weapons from Iran in January bound for Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, according to Agence France-Presse.
“A U.S. Coast Guard ship… seized a shipment of advanced conventional weapons and other lethal aid originating in Iran and destined for Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen from a vessel in the Arabian Sea on January 28,” CENTCOM said in a statement posted on its X platform.
The statement added that the shipment contained more than 200 packages including missile components, explosives and other devices.
The same statement quoted CENTCOM Commander Michael Eric Kurilla as saying, “This is another example of Iran’s malign activity in the region.”
On January 16, the US military announced that it had seized Iranian-made missile components on a boat in the Arabian Sea on January 11 that were headed to the Houthis, in the first such operation since the Yemeni rebels began targeting ships off Yemen.
Even before the attacks began, the US military repeatedly announced the seizure of weapons shipments it said were headed from Iran to the Houthis.
On the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East, Iranian weapons were present, as they were used extensively in Ukraine to strike civilian infrastructure targets, while pro-Tehran militias use them to strike American, Western and Israeli interests in the region.
From Syria to Ukraine, the “burgeoning” military ties between Russia and Iran are a source of concern for the United States.
Last October, US military officials displayed at the United Nations what they said were parts of Iranian drones found in Ukraine.
The debris includes parts of Iranian Shahed 101, Shahed 131 and Shahed 136 drones found in Ukraine, US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials said.
Tehran denies Western accusations that it is supplying Russia with large numbers of drones, some of them armed, for use in its war in Ukraine.
Last August, US defense intelligence officials displayed in Washington parts of Iranian drones that they said were from Ukraine.
This time, they displayed two Shahed 131 drones, one of which they said was used in Ukraine in the fall of 2022 and the other was found in Iraq in 2021.