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Irans drone threat has been increasing in recent years. Reports on the evening of April 13 that Iran had launched drones targeting Israel are the latest example of how the Iranian drone threat is expanding across the Middle East and also threatening the world. It is a threat to the world because Iran has exported Shahed 136 drones to Russia to be used against Ukraine and it has also exported drones to Venezuela and other countries.

Iran has been investing in drones since the 1980s. It invested in drones, or what are also known as unmanned aerial vehicles or remote-piloted aircraft, because Irans air force suffered losses due to the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 and also due to the Iran-Iran war. Using cheap unmanned aircraft made sense for Iran during the war with Iraq because Iraq had better air defense systems and also had aircraft acquired from the Soviets.

By contrast the Iranians were flying aircraft the Shahs regime had acquired from the United States, but these aircraft didnt always have replacement parts of enough trained pilots. Cheap drones can be used for missions that are considered dull, dirty and dangerous.

Irans drone program consisted of simple drones in the beginning. These drones also came in several families built by various state-linked companies. They includes the Shahed family of drones and the Ababil. Iran modelled these drones on the types of drones it saw other countries using, such as the US Predator, or the Israeli Hermes and also other types of Israeli drones. Over time Iran realized that its drones, mostly used for surveillance, were not longer a weapon that allowed Iran to project the kind of power it wanted.

What Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wanted was an instant air force. In the last decade Iran has increased its drone program exponentially. It began to invest in simple kamikaze drones, and this eventually led to the creation of the Shahed 136. The Shahed 136 is relatively simple in design, around 3.5 meters in length and 2.5 meters in width, with up to a 40kg warhead. It has a delta-wing design which may make it harder to detect from some radars. However in general what makes it successful is that it is easy to make and Iran has found success exporting them.

Iran moved Shahed 136 type drones to Yemen in late 2020 to be used by the Iran-backed Houthis.

The Houthis had already been using numerous types of drones, often with Iranian designs and advise. In addition Iran had already found success in exporting its drones and blueprints for them to Hezbollah in Lebanon and also sending drones to Iraq and Syria. For instance, in February 2018 Iran launched a drone targeting Israel from Syrias T-4 base near Palmyra. Iran also used drones to attack Saudi Arabias Abqaiq facility in 2019.

Irans drones are now a major threat, not only to the Middle East but also to Europe because Russia possesses Iranian drones. In addition Iran has used drones to attack the Kurdistan region of Iraq and to target US forces in Iraq and Syria.

According to the Washington Post an Iranian drone struck a CIA hangar at Erbil International Airport, part of a US facility at the airport in the Kurdistan region. As such, the Iranian drone program has become a growing threat and one that is rapidly increasing. The fact that Iran has decided to use drones to target Israel illustrates that Iran feels this is now the go-to tool of attack.

Iran has essentially put these drone programs on steroids in the last several years. It has used drones also to attack commercial ships and its proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen, have targeted Eilat using drones. Hezbollah in Lebanon is also believed to possess thousands of drones. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have targeted Israel with drones over the last several months. Irans drone threat is now one of its main military threats to the region, one that has surpassed its missile and other threats in many ways.

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Iran's drones and how they are used to threaten the Middle East, globe - The Jerusalem Post

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Iran has launched an aerial attack on Israel from Iranian territory, marking a major escalation in a long running conflict between the two rival regional powers.

Iran's top military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, issued a pre-dawn statement on Sunday saying that it launched "dozens of missiles and drones" from Iranian territory toward Israel. It said the attack was in retaliation for what Iranian officials say was an Israeli strike that killed several senior Iranian military commanders in Damascus, Syria, on April 1.

The Israeli military, which has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the April 1 strike, issued a statement saying its air and naval forces were monitoring the Iranian attack.

In a phone interview with VOA, Israeli Brigadier General in reserves Jacob Nagel, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Israeli air force likely has started to intercept Iranian drones over the airspace of neighboring Arab countries. Such drones would take several hours to reach Israeli airspace from Iran.

Nagel, a senior fellow with the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he was speaking based on what he knows of Israeli military capabilities and preparations for an Iranian attack.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari, in a video message posted on the social media platform known as X, said Iran also had fired missiles in its aerial assault.

Netanyahu said in a televised message that Israel will defend itself "against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination."

The Biden administration said the United States will "stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran."

White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson issued a statement saying, "This attack is likely to unfold over a number of hours. President [Joe] Biden has been clear: our support for Israel's security is ironclad."

Netanyahu acknowledged that support in his own statement, saying, "We appreciate the U.S. standing alongside Israel, as well as the support of Britain, France and many other countries."

In a post on the X, Iran's U.N. mission in New York said the aerial attack on Israel marks the conclusion of Tehran's military action.

It added: "Should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran's response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!"

Nagel said the Iranian attack, the first of its kind in decades of hostility between the Islamic republic and Israel, likely will be a turning point in the conflict.

"Probably we are going to see a regional confrontation, because it is not only Iran against Israel, but Iran against the free world," he said.

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VOA News On Iran - Voice of America - Voice of America - VOA News

Alfonso Chardy, a Miami Herald journalist who anchored Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting that helped expose the Iran-contra affair, a covert and illegal Reagan administration network to aid rebels in Nicaragua that later led to riveting hearings in Congress, died April 9 at a hospital in Miami. He was 72.

The cause was a heart attack, said his wife, Siobhan Morrissey.

During a more than four-decade career, Mr. Chardy covered the Middle East as the Heralds Jerusalem-based bureau chief from 1989 to 1990 and was part of three other Pulitzer-winning teams at the paper, including coverage of a Cuban boy, Elin Gonzlez, who was returned to the island in 2000 after a raid by immigration agents in Miami and a months-long court battle that became a test of U.S. asylum rules.

Assigned to follow Latin American affairs in Washington in 1982, Mr. Chardy built a reputation as a dogged chronicler of U.S. policymaking in a region locked in Cold War proxy battles. In Nicaragua, where leftist Sandinista guerrillas seized power in 1979, Washingtons money and support had flowed to anti-Sandinista rebels known as contras.

Congress later limited contra military aid and then imposed a hold in late 1984. Hints of possible secret workarounds began to reach Mr. Chardy, whose last name was Chardi but was once misspelled by an editor in his native Mexico and adopted as his byline. Mr. Chardy began tapping his sources in Washington and with the rebels.

In 1985, he reported that a then little-known National Security Council adviser, Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, had promised the contras that President Ronald Reagan would never abandon them. About the same time, a Beirut newspaper, al-Shiraa, broke stories about back-channel U.S. arms sales to Iran then locked in a war with Iraq for the release of hostages held by Iranian-allied groups in Lebanon.

Mr. Chardys sources told him that North was involved in the arms shipments that reached Iran. The minute I saw Oliver Norths name raised in connection with the arms sales, I said to myself, This is going to lead to the contras,' he wrote in an essay in a 1991 book, Winning Pulitzers, by Karen Rothmyer.

Mr. Chardy and the Herald team started to piece together an audacious U.S. scheme: secretly selling missiles and other weapons to Iran through indirect sources, in violation of an arms embargo, and funneling most of the revenue from the sales to contras.

On Oct. 28, 1986, Mr. Chardys byline was on a Herald story that ran across the top of the front page. With President Reagans blessing, wrote Mr. Chardy, U.S. officials knitted a worldwide support network stretching from South Korea to Saudi Arabia over the last three years that kept the Nicaraguan rebels alive after Congress curbed and then banned Contra aid, according to administration and rebel officials.

The piece opened a scramble among the Washington press corps for more details. Then a bombshell: Attorney General Edwin Meese III announced in November 1986 that $28 million from the Iran arm sales ended up with the contras. Soon, North was fired from the NSC.

A story by Mr. Chardy on Nov. 27, 1986, citing sources in Congress and with the contras, said Reagan had previously authorized North to find alternative sources of financial aid for the Nicaraguan rebels after Congress moved to bar CIA aid to them.

On Dec. 11, 1986, a story by Mr. Chardy and Herald colleague Sam Dillon described a Boeing 707 cargo plane that ferried weapons to the Middle East bound for Iran and returned to Central America laden with Soviet-made arms for the Nicaraguan rebels.

Mr. Chardys reporting uncovered links to other obscure officials involved in aidingthe contras, including Robert Owen, an NSC consultant who was Norths go-between with the rebels.

A report in February 1987 by the Tower Commission an investigative panel created by Reagan and led by a former senator from Texas, John Tower (R) blamed Reagan for loose oversight that allowed the secret contra program to operate under North and others, using middlemen for the Iran weapons sales such as Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.

In a nationally televised address on March 4, 1987, Reagan acknowledged that he was aware of the arms-for-hostages deals but denied knowing about money diversions to the contras before Meeses disclosures. The next month, the Miami Herald was awarded a Pulitzer for national reporting. (The New York Times also received a national reporting Pulitzer for coverage into the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion.)

The fallout from Iran-contra was still not over. Joint hearings by House and Senate select committees opened in May 1987, bringing more revelations about Iran-contra during three months of questioning that were broadcast live.

In testimony in early July 1987, North admitted he lied to Congress during earlier questioning about the Iran-contra network and said he diverted funds to the rebels with the knowledge of superiors including the national security adviser, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter. Fawn Hall, Norths secretary, was given immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony about shredding documents and other acts.

Youve also admitted you altered some of the documents in which you clearly describe your role, North was asked by George Van Cleve, the deputy counsel for House Republicans.

Can you assure this committee that you are not here now lying to protect your commander in chief? Van Cleve asked later in the testimony.

I am not lying to protect anybody, Counsel. I came here to tell the truth, North replied. I told you that I was going to tell it to you the good, the bad and the ugly. Some of it has been ugly for me.

North was convicted in 1989 of obstructing an investigation and destroying evidence. The conviction was overturned on appeal in 1991. Poindexter was convicted of conspiracy, perjury and other counts, but he was also cleared on appeal. Dozens of other officials faced charges related to Iran-contra, including Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, but nearly all were pardoned in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush, who had been Reagans vice president.

Alfonso Nieto Chardi was born on April 14, 1951, in Mexico City. His father was an accountant, and his mother tended to the home.

He learned English through courses and listening to the radio. He served in the army for six months and then worked as a proofreader and translator at the English-language Mexico City News, where an editor once rendered his name as Chardy. He credited the student protests in Mexico in 1968 and the Mexico City Olympics that year for his interest in journalism as he watched foreign reporters pour into the Mexican capital.

He joined the Associated Press in Mexico City in 1974 and later was an AP correspondent in Buenos Aires and Bogot. He later freelanced in Central America, including for United Press International, and was in Nicaragua amid celebrations after Sandinista forces overthrew the president, Anastasio Somoza.

Mr. Chardy joined the Miami Herald in 1980, first covering the Mariel boatlift from Cuba when more than 120,0000 people fled by sea seeking to reach Florida. He was part of Pulitzer-winning teams in 1993 for public service in the coverage of 1992s Hurricane Andrew; in 1999 for investigative reporting into voter fraud that helped overturn a Miami mayoral election; and in 2001 for breaking news in the Elin Gonzlez case.

He retired in 2017 after several years with the Heralds Spanish-language sister publication, El Nuevo Herald. He lived in Key Biscayne with his wife, a journalist whom he married in 1994. Other survivors include five nephews and two nieces.

In recounting the Iran-contra reporting, Mr. Chardy said the contras were indispensable in filling in the gaps.

They exposed Oliver North. They exposed Rob Owen, he wrote. They exposed all the principal people.

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Alfonso Chardy, journalist who helped expose Iran-contra affair, dies at 72 - The Washington Post

Niger is pulling its military cooperation deal with the United States and ordering some 1,000 American military personnel to leave the country, a startling development that comes after U.S. officials last week traveled to the capital of Niamey to “raise a number of concerns” about Niger growing closer to Russia and Iran, the Pentagon said Monday.

The ruling military junta on Saturday revoked a major accord known as the status of forces agreement, which allows U.S. forces in Niger. Biden administration officials are aware of this and are “working through diplomatic channels to seek clarification,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters. 

But just last week, a delegation from Washington that included Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander and U.S. Africa Command head Gen. Michael Langley, met with officials with Niger’s National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP). 

“The U.S. delegation was there to raise a number of concerns . . . We were troubled on the path that Niger is on. And so these were direct and frank conversations to have those in person, to talk about our concerns and to also hear theirs,” Singh said. 

Pressed on what the U.S. issues were, Singh said officials “expressed concern over Niger’s potential relationships with Russia and Iran.”

The Biden administration officials also raised alarms over whether Niger was close to an agreement to give Iran access to its uranium reserves, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

The future of a U.S. military presence in Niger has been in question since a military junta in late July put the country’s president on house arrest and took control of the government. 

The State Department, which did not officially declare the takeover a coup until October, cut back on U.S. aid in the country but still allowed humanitarian assistance. Washington also paused security operations in Niger, where U.S. forces largely help with counterterrorism efforts in the region against an Islamist insurgency.

But following a recent trend by countries in Africa’s western Sahel region, Niger has appeared to turn to Russia as a partner over Western nations. 

“The American presence in the territory of the Republic of Niger is illegal,” Niger’s military spokesman Col. Amadou Abdramane said on national television, as reported by The New York Times. He also said the presence of American troops “violates all the constitutional and democratic rules, which would require the sovereign people — notably through its elected officials — to be consulted on the installation of a foreign army on its territory.” 

The development is a major setback for U.S. efforts in the Sahel, where just six years ago it opened a $110 million base in northern Niger used to fly surveillance drones. 

Niger’s declared ousting of U.S. troops also follows France’s withdrawal of its forces from the country last year.

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Niger ordered US troops to leave after Biden officials warned about ties to Russia, Iran: Pentagon - The Hill

Iran and the United States held secret, indirect talks in Oman in January, addressing the escalating threat posed to Red Sea shipping by the Houthis in Yemen, as well as the attacks on American bases by Iran-backed militias in Iraq, according to Iranian and U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.

The secret talks were held on Jan. 10 in Muscat, the capital of Oman, with Omani officials shuffling messages back and forth between delegations of Iranians and Americans sitting in separate rooms. The delegations were led by Ali Bagheri Kani, Irans deputy foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator, and Brett McGurk, President Bidens coordinator for the Middle East.

The meeting, first reported by The Financial Times this week, was the first time Iranian and American officials had held in-person negotiations albeit indirectly in nearly eight months. American officials said Iran requested the meeting in January and the Omanis strongly recommended that the United States accept.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza after Hamass Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the United States and Iran have reassured each other that neither was seeking a direct confrontation, a stance conveyed in messages they passed through intermediaries.

But in Oman, each side had a clear request of the other, according to U.S. and Iranian officials.

Washington wanted Iran to rein in its proxies to stop the Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the targeting of American bases in Iraq and Syria. Tehran, in turn, wanted the Biden administration to deliver a cease-fire in Gaza.

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Iran and U.S. Held Secret Talks on Proxy Attacks and Cease-Fire - The New York Times