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United States Central Command (CENTCOM) on Thursday reported the interception of a weapons shipment originating from Iran and bound for Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen.

The shipment was described as "advanced conventional weapons and other lethal aid," consisting of ballistic missile components, drones, explosives and other military equipment.

U.S. Coast Guard Sentinel-class fast-response cutter USCGC Clarence Sutphin Jr, assigned to CENTCOM Naval Forces, "located the vessel and boarded it in the Arabian Sea," according to the statement.

On board were "over 200 packages that contained medium-range ballistic missile components, explosives, unmanned underwater/surface vehicle (UUV/USV) components, military-grade communication and network equipment, anti-tank guided missile launcher assemblies, and other military components."

CENTCOM pointed out in its statement that such shipments, whether directly or indirectly, violated United Nations Security Council Resolution 2216, which was extended and renewed in resolutions 2675 and 2707.

This is yet another example of Irans malign activity in the region, CENTCOM commander, General Michael Erik Kurilla, said in the statement.

Their continued supply of advanced conventional weapons to the Houthis is in direct violation of international law and continues to undermine the safety of international shipping and the free flow of commerce," Kurilla stated.

"CENTCOM is committed to working with our allies and partners to counter the flow of Iranian lethal aid in the region by all lawful means including U.S. and U.N. sanctions and through interdictions," the statement concluded.

Original post:
CENTCOM Intercepts Large Weapons Shipment From Iran Bound For Houthis - I24NEWS - i24NEWS

TEHRAN Iran's Aerospace Force Commander Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh said on Thursday that Tehran-made stealth drones are capable of targeting any moving vessel within any range, as tensions at sea continue to heighten due to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

The naval forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are also "advanced enough" to successfully conduct reconnaissance operations at any point, according to Hajizadeh, whose comments were reported by the state broadcaster's IRIB news agency as he addressed officials at an IRGC exhibition in Tehran.

Hajizadeh claimed that the Islamic Republic currently stands among the world's leading powers when it comes to defenses, including missile and drone technologies. "We have now reached a point where the terrorist military of the United States openly admits that it is not seeking a conflict with the Islamic Republic because it is unable to resist the Iranian defense prowess," he said.

The statement was made as tensions continue to rise in the Red Sea, with Tehran-backed Houthi militants from Yemen targeting international vessels. The group says the attacks will continue as long as Israel is bombarding the Gaza Strip. The Houthis have suffered several rounds of strikes by the United States and the United Kingdom meant to destroy their combat capability.

Link:
Iran's IRGC claims developing stealth drones that 'can hit any vessel' - Al-Monitor

U.S. Central Command released this undated photo as part of its announcement of renewed airstrikes against Houthi targets on Saturday. U.S. Central Command hide caption

U.S. Central Command released this undated photo as part of its announcement of renewed airstrikes against Houthi targets on Saturday.

The U.S. struck Iranian-linked targets in the Middle East for a second consecutive day Saturday.

The U.S. and allies hit 36 Houthi targets at 13 locations in Yemen, the Pentagon said Saturday. On Friday, the U.S. struck facilities in Iraq and Syria, as part of a broader campaign that U.S officials say is in retaliation for a drone attack that killed three American soldiers. The U.S. says it struck Iran-backed proxies in each country.

The Pentagon said the U.K., Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand were involved in Saturday's strikes against Houthi targets, saying they were in response to Houthi attacks targeting international shipping vessels.

U.S. Central Command said strikes targeted "multiple underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters" used by the Houthis.

The current round of U.S. strikes is more extensive and deadly than those from the previous few months.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the Houthis will "continue to bear further consequences if they do not end their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels."

The attacks come in response to a drone attack on a U.S. support base in Jordan on Jan. 28 that killed three Army Reserve soldiers. An Iranian-backed militia group claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the highest death toll of U.S. troops in the Middle East in at least a decade.

Iran's foreign ministry called the attacks a "strategic mistake" and said they "will have no other result other than intensifying tensions and instability in the region."

Iranian-backed militias have mounted more than 165 drone, missile and rocket attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan would not rule out strikes within Iran when asked about that possibility Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.

"Well, sitting here today on a national news program, I'm not going to get into what we've ruled in and ruled out from the point of view of military action," Sullivan said. "What I will say is that the president is determined to respond forcefully to attacks on our people. The president also is not looking for a wider war in the Middle East."

Sullivan did say that strikes against the militias will continue.

"It began with strikes on Friday night but that is not the end of it," he told NBC. "We intend to take additional strikes and additional action to continue to send a clear message that that the United States will respond when our forces are attacked, or people are killed."

The latest strikes came on the same day that U.S. military officials say U.S. forces destroyed six Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles in Yemen in "self-defense," saying that the missiles were to be used against ships in the Red Sea.

U.S. and British forces have carried out multiple attacks against Houthi military facilities, as the Iranian-backed group has continued to target commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Excerpt from:
The U.S. and allies launch strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen - NPR

Iranian pro-government media attempted to ignore the US airstrikes on pro-Iran militias that took place over the weekend. Even though the US struck half a dozen sites with dozens of munitions, the regime in Tehran appears to be downplaying them.

This is likely because very few Iran-affiliated operatives were killed in the attacks. Also, Iran had a week to wait and plan what to do after its Iraq-based militias killed three Americans in Jordan.

At the same time, pro-Iran media in the region, such as the Al-Mayadeen TV channel, have claimed that the sites that were struck had been evacuated, and they say that pro-Iran groups have already begun targeting the US again.

Iran and its militias have also made it clear that countries in the region should not assist the US. Jordan, for instance, had downplayed the attack on its territory after it took place on January 27. In essence, the region feels that this kind of tit-for-tat conflict, in which Iran uses proxies to attack the US and the Americans strike warehouses and other sites linked to the proxies, might as well be happening on another continent.

This is because in the last year, the region has sought to put the era of these kinds of conflicts behind it. For instance, China brokered a Saudi-Iran normalization deal. There is a ceasefire in Yemen with the Houthis. Yet the Houthis have carried out dozens of attacks on ships in the Red Sea, destabilizing the region.

Key US partners in the region, such as Egypt and Jordan, want to downplay the tensions. Egypt, for instance, is not interested in discussing the Red Sea, while Jordan put out a statement making it clear that it was not involved in the US strikes in Iraq and Syria.

The Royal Jordanian Air Force did not participate in the air strikes carried out by the US Air Force inside Iraqi territory, the Jordanian military said. There is no truth to the press reports about the participation of Jordanian aircraft in the operations carried out by US forces inside Iraq. The Jordanian Armed Forces-Arab Army respects the sovereignty of Iraq. The statement underscores the depth of relations that unite Jordan with all Arab countries, the statement read.

In the UAE, Al-Ain media likely reflects Gulf thinking when it reports that the US strikes were part of the rules of engagement and that there was a lot of noise in the strikes, but no major escalation is likely to result.

Iran's statements about the strikes portray the US as ultimately on the losing end of this encounter. Iran believes that, in the long term, the US is slowly withdrawing from the region. It has been read as the policy goal of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.

This likely emboldened Iran and its proxies to go for broke when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. The degree of Irans involvement in planning that massacre is still unclear, but within days, Iran had mobilized Hezbollah, the Houthis, and militias in Iraq and Syria to carry out attacks.

Therefore, its clear that Iran believed that the October 7 attack was a turning point. This was a crossover point for Iran, beyond which it believes it will increasingly achieve victory in numerous arenas in the region.

Al-Mayadeen media, which is pro-Iran, quotes the Al-Nujaba militia in Iraq as saying they will respond to the US attacks. Hezbollah slammed the US strikes, claiming Washington was escalating the wars in the region. This is ironic, since it is Irans proxies, including Hezbollah and Nujaba, that are responsible for most of the problems in the region. Pro-Iran groups have already claimed to target US forces since the attacks, illustrating they are not deterred.

Iran has shown over the last several years that it can operationalize its militias to carry out hundreds of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria and that those militias generally emerge unscathed. In general, the Iranian militias continue to be strengthened, and Iran believes it holds a winning hand.

Iran wants to get political parties in Iraq to demand that the US leave. As such, Iran gets militias in Iraq to target US forces, even in Jordan, and then, when the Americans respond, Iraq claims this is a violation of its sovereignty.

This is a lose-lose situation for the US. If the US responds more strongly, it will be accused of escalating the situation. Iran will then use the escalation as an excuse for more attacks. Iran also uses militias, so it has plausible deniability. Any attacks on Iran itself would be an escalation as well.

The US response to the January 27 attack, like the responses to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, has not yet deterred the Iranian-backed groups.

View post:
Iran undeterred by US strikes, as US withdrawing from Middle East - The Jerusalem Post

As Iran and the United States assessed the damage done by American airstrikes in Syria and Iraq on Friday, the initiative suddenly shifted to Tehran and its pending decision whether to respond or to take the hit and de-escalate.

The expectation in Washington and among its allies is that the Iranians will choose the latter course, seeing no benefit in getting into a shooting war with a far larger power, with all the risks that implies. But it is not yet clear whether the varied proxy forces that have conducted scores of attacks on American bases and ships and that rely on Iran for money, arms and intelligence will conclude that their interests, too, are served by backing off.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls parts of Yemen, have continued to attack ships in the Red Sea despite a series of American strikes, including one on Saturday, meant to deter them.

Fridays strikes were largely in retaliation for a drone attack by an Iran-backed militia that killed three American soldiers in Jordan on Jan. 28. The United States hit back at that group and several other Iran-backed militias with 85 targeted strikes. In the aftermath, American officials insisted there was no back-channel discussion with Tehran, no quiet agreement that the United States would not strike directly at Iran.

Theres been no communications with Iran since the attack, John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told reporters on a call on Friday night after the retaliatory strikes were completed.

But even without direct conversation, there has been plenty of signaling, in both directions.

President Biden is engaged in a military, diplomatic and election-year gamble that he can first restore some semblance of deterrence in the region, then help orchestrate a pause or cease-fire in Gaza to allow for hostage exchanges with Israel and then, in the biggest challenge of all, try to reshape the dynamics of the region.

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U.S. Strikes Test Iran's Will to Escalate - The New York Times