Iran’s arming of Houthi militias, threatens regional & international security

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September Net

No one is ignorant of the destructive role of Iran in and the Arab region by supporting armed militias, finding proxies, just as the Houthi militia movement in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

It has led to wars and instability in a number of Arab countries, like Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. Each can be seen as model images that reflect the clarity of Iran’s negative role in the region.

Iran’s arming of Houthi militias in Yemen has become known at all levels. By providing Houthi rebels with weapons and drones, Iran seeks to target internal, regional and international security.

It does not stop at this point, but it also smuggles weapons experts into secret militia camps to train the rebels.

Earlier, UN experts confirmed Iran’s continued smuggling of smart weapons, such as cruise missiles against ships and booby-trapped boats that target sea shipping in the Red Sea.

The use of Houti militias in Yemen for the drones, has raised a number of questions, regarding the legitimacy of Tehran arming its militias with such type of technology, while rejecting of the Iranian side what is repeated.

The Houthi militia in Yemen are still arming itself with ballistic missiles and weapons that show similar characteristics to Iranian-made weapons, a report by a UN panel of experts found.

In a report to the Security Council revealed by AFP in early 2019, the commission said it “continues to believe” that short-range ballistic missiles and other weapons have been transferred from Iran to Yemen after an arms embargo was imposed in 2015.

Iran has repeatedly denied arming the Houthis in Yemen, but the United States and Saudi Arabia have accused Tehran of providing military support to the rebels.

The 125-page report revealed that, recent weapons inspections, including rockets and drones used by the Houthis, “show similar characteristics to well-known Iranian-made weapons systems.”

The report, which was written from January to July this year, confirmed that during its recent visits to Saudi Arabia, the Commission was able to examine residual fragments of 10 rockets and found signs that they were Iranian-made rockets.

“Despite the arms embargo, the Houthis still have access to ballistic missiles and drones by smuggling, to continue and possibly intensify their campaign against targets in Saudi Arabia,” the report said.

A new report claims that Iran has transferred aerial drone technology to Houthi rebels in Yemen. According to Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a U.K.-based organization that tracks and analyzes weapons shipments around the world, Houthis use the explosive-laden drones to disable Arab coalition’s missile defenses. By disrupting the coalition’s radar system with the drones, the rebels are able to fire a barrage of missiles at coalition targets, it added. “These findings strengthen a body of evidence compiled by CAR, which links weapons captured from Houthi to transfers from Iranian national stockpiles,” the authors of the report explained.

A report by Reuters published quoted several regional and Western sources as saying that “in recent months Iran has taken a greater role in the two-year-old conflict by stepping up arms supplies and other support.”

The report also quoted an unnamed Iranian official as revealing that Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’s elite Qods Force, met top I.R.G.C. officials in Tehran last month to explore ways of empowering the Houthis.

Moreover, a Saudi coalition aircraft recently killed a senior I.R.G.C. officer who reportedly supervised the design and implementation of ballistic missile systems for Houthi missile brigades in Yemen. And earlier this month, Yousef al-Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the United States, said Iran was prolonging the Yemeni conflict by sending weapons to Houthi rebels.

While the Iranian government denies sending arms to the Houthis, the U.S. military and its allies have confiscated several Iranian arms shipments destined for Yemen. In January, the Australian government released photographs that showed light anti-armor weapons seized near the Yemeni coast were manufactured in Iran. And last November, another report published CAR indicated an arms “pipeline” originating from Iran extended to Yemen and Somalia.

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