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Exclusive-Iranian and Hezbollah commanders help direct Houthi attacks in Yemen, sources say

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Exclusive-Iranian and Hezbollah commanders help direct Houthi attacks in Yemen, sources say
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Houthi movement rally to denounce air strikes launched by the U.S. and Britain on Houthi targets, in Sanaa, Yemen January 12, 2024. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah/File Photo

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By Samia Nakhoul and Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) – Commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group are on the ground in Yemen helping to direct and oversee Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, four regional and two Iranian sources told Reuters.

Iran – which has armed, trained and funded the Houthis – stepped up its weapons supplies to the militia in the wake of the war in Gaza, which erupted after Iranian-backed militants Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the four regional sources said.

Tehran has provided advanced drones, anti-ship cruise missiles, precision-strike ballistic missiles and medium-range missiles to the Houthis, who started targeting commercial vessels in November in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, the sources said.

IRGC commanders and advisers are also providing know-how, data and intelligence support to determine which of the dozens of vessels travelling through the Red Sea each day are destined for Israel and constitute Houthi targets, all the sources said.

Washington said last month that Iran was deeply involved in planning operations against shipping in the Red Sea and that its intelligence was critical to enable the Houthis to target ships.

In response to a request for comment for this story, the White House pointed to its previous public comments about how Iran has been supporting the Houthis.

    In his weekly news conferences, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani has repeatedly denied Tehran is involved in the Red Sea attacks by the Houthis. The IRGC public relations office did not respond to request for comment.

Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam denied any Iranian or Hezbollah involvement in helping to direct the Red Sea attacks. A Hezbollah spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The Houthis, who emerged in the 1980s as an armed group in opposition to Saudi Arabia’s Sunni religious influence in Yemen, say they are supporting Hamas by striking commercial ships they say are either linked to Israel or are heading to Israeli ports.

    Their attacks have affected global shipping between Asia and Europe through the Bab al-Mandab strait off Yemen. That has triggered U.S. and British air strikes on Houthi targets in the country, opening a new theatre of conflict linked to the war in Gaza.

The Gaza conflict has also sparked clashes between Israel and Hezbollah militants along the Lebanese border, as well as attacks by Iran-linked groups on U.S. targets in Iraq and Syria.

    “The Revolutionary Guards have been helping the Houthis with military training (on advanced weapons),” an Iranian insider told Reuters. “A group of Houthi fighters were in Iran last month and were trained in an IRGC base in central Iran to get familiar with the new technology and the use of missiles.”

    The person said Iranian commanders had travelled to Yemen as well and set up a command centre in the capital Sanaa for the Red Sea attacks which is being run by the senior IRGC commander responsible for Yemen.

REGIONAL STRATEGY

    The Red Sea attacks fit in with Iran’s strategy of expanding and mobilising its regional Shi’ite network of armed militias to project its influence and show its ability to threaten maritime security in the region and beyond, two analysts said.

    They said Tehran wanted to show that the Gaza war could be too costly for the West if it drags on – and could have catastrophic consequences in the region as things escalate.

“The Houthis are not acting independently,” said Abdulaziz al-Sager, director of the Gulf Research Center think-tank, who based his conclusion on a close analysis of the capabilities of the group, which has an estimated 20,000 fighters.

    “The Houthis, with their personnel, expertise and capabilities are not that advanced. Dozens of vessels cross through Bab al-Mandab daily, the Houthis don’t have the means, resources, knowledge or satellite information to find the specific target and attack,” he said.

White House national security spokeswoman Adrienne Watson also said last month that Iranian-provided tactical intelligence had been critical in enabling the Houthis to target ships.

According to two former Yemeni army sources, there is a clear presence of IRGC and Hezbollah members in Yemen. They are responsible for supervising military operations, training and reassembling missiles smuggled into Yemen as separate pieces, the two people said.

    Abdulghani Al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, an independent think-tank, said: “It is clearly the case that the Iranians are helping identify the target and the destination. There is no local Houthi capacity to do that.”

    One senior regional source who follows Iran and who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “The political decision is in Tehran, the management is Hezbollah, and the location is the Houthis in Yemen.”

WEAPONS AND ADVICE

    Houthi spokesperson Abdulsalam said the group’s aim was to target Israeli ships heading to Israel without causing any human or significant material losses. U.S. and British strikes on Yemen would not force them to back down, he said.

“We don’t deny that we have a relationship with Iran and that we have benefited from the Iranian experience in training and military manufacturing and capabilities but the decision taken by Yemen is an independent one that has nothing to do with any other party,” he said.

    But a security official close to Iran said: “The Houthis have drones, missiles and everything needed for their fight against Israel but they needed guidance and advice on shipping routes and ships, so it has been provided to them by Iran.”

    When asked what kind of advice Tehran offered, he said it was similar to the advisory role taken by Iran in Syria, ranging from training to overseeing operations when needed.

“A group of Iranian Guards members are in Sanaa now to help the operations,” the security official said.

Iran sent hundreds of Revolutionary Guards to Syria, alongside thousands of Hezbollah fighters, to help train and organise Shi’ite militia fighters from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan to prevent the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad during the Sunni-led insurgency that erupted in 2011.

Washington and Gulf Arab states have repeatedly accused Iran of arming, training and financing the Houthis, who follow an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam and are aligned with Tehran as part of its anti-Western, anti-Israel “Axis of Resistance” alongside Lebanon’s Hezbollah and groups in Syria and Iraq.

    While Iran has denied having any direct role in the Red Sea attacks, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has praised the Houthis, whose Zaidi sect is an offshoot of Shi’ism, saying he hoped their strikes would last “until victory”.

TRAIN AND EQUIP

A leader within the coalition of pro-Iranian groups denied there were any commanders from the IRGC or Hezbollah on the ground in Yemen right now.

He said a team of Iranian and Hezbollah military experts had gone to Yemen earlier in its civil war to train, equip and build the manufacturing military capability of the Houthis.

    “They came and helped the Houthis and left, just as they did with Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said, adding that the military capabilities of the Houthis should not be underestimated.

    The person said the Houthis knew the terrain and the sea well and already had the systems in place for attacking ships, including high-precision equipment from Iran.

During the chaotic years after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Yemen, the Houthis tightened their grip on the country’s north and seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, pushing a Saudi-led coalition to intervene militarily months later.

    When Hamas attacked Israel, Iran had little choice but to demonstrate support for the Palestinian group after years of anti-Israel rhetoric but was worried that using Hezbollah would trigger massive Israeli retaliation, analysts said.

Iryani at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies said a major war between Israel and Hezbollah would be disastrous for Lebanon – and endanger the future of the group that has become the most important in Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”.

    By contrast, the Houthis were in a unique strategic position to have a huge impact by disrupting global maritime activity with little effort, he said.

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Palantir, Anduril join forces with tech groups to bid for Pentagon contracts, FT reports

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(Reuters) – Data analytics firm Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:) and defense tech company Anduril Industries are in talks with about a dozen competitors to form a consortium that will jointly bid for U.S. government work, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The consortium, which could announce agreements with other tech groups as early as January, is expected to include SpaceX, OpenAI, autonomous shipbuilder Saronic and artificial intelligence data group Scale AI, the newspaper said, citing several people with knowledge of the matter.

“We are working together to provide a new generation of defence contractors,” a person involved in developing the group told the newspaper.

The consortium will bring together the heft of some of Silicon Valley’s most valuable companies and will leverage their products to provide a more efficient way of supplying the U.S. government with cutting-edge defence and weapons capabilities, the newspaper added.

Palantir, Anduril, OpenAI, Scale AI and Saronic did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. SpaceX could not be immediately reached for a comment.

Reuters reported earlier this month that President-elect Donald Trump’s planned U.S. government efficiency drive involving Elon Musk could lead to more joint projects between big defense contractors and smaller tech firms in areas such as artificial intelligence, drones and uncrewed submarines.

Musk, who was named as a co-leader of a government efficiency initiative in the incoming government, has indicated that Pentagon spending and priorities will be a target of the efficiency push, spreading anxiety at defense heavyweights such as Boeing (NYSE:) , Northrop Grumman (NYSE:) , Lockheed Martin (NYSE:) and General Dynamics (NYSE:) .

Musk and many small defense tech firms have been aligned in criticizing legacy defense programs like Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet while calling for mass production of cheaper AI-powered drones, missiles and submarines.

Such views have given major defense contractors more incentive to partner with emerging defense technology players in these areas.

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Weakened Iran could pursue nuclear weapon, White House’s Sullivan says

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By Simon Lewis (JO:)

(Reuters) -The Biden administration is concerned that a weakened Iran could build a nuclear weapon, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, adding that he was briefing President-elect Donald Trump’s team on the risk.

Iran has suffered setbacks to its regional influence after Israel’s assaults on its allies, Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, followed by the fall of Iran-aligned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses, have reduced Tehran’s conventional military capabilities, Sullivan told CNN.

“It’s no wonder there are voices (in Iran) saying, ‘Hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now … Maybe we have to revisit our nuclear doctrine’,” Sullivan said.

Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has expanded uranium enrichment since Trump, in his 2017-2021 presidential term, pulled out of a deal between Tehran and world powers that put restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief.

Sullivan said that there was a risk that Iran might abandon its promise not to build nuclear weapons.

“It’s a risk we are trying to be vigilant about now. It’s a risk that I’m personally briefing the incoming team on,” Sullivan said, adding that he had also consulted with U.S. ally Israel.

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, could return to his hardline Iran policy by stepping up sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters, in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo

Sullivan said Trump would have an opportunity to pursue diplomacy with Tehran, given Iran’s “weakened state.”

“Maybe he can come around this time, with the situation Iran finds itself in, and actually deliver a nuclear deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the long term,” he said.

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Ukraine says Russian general deliberately targeted Reuters staff in August missile strike

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(Reuters) -Ukraine’s security service has named a Russian general it suspects of ordering a missile strike on a hotel in eastern Ukraine in August and said he acted “with the motive of deliberately killing employees of” Reuters.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement on Friday that Colonel General Alexei Kim, a deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff, approved the strike that killed Reuters safety adviser Ryan Evans and wounded two of the agency’s journalists on Aug. 24.

In a statement posted on Telegram messenger the SBU said it was notifying Kim in absentia that he was an official suspect in its investigation into the strike on the Sapphire Hotel in Kramatorsk, a step in Ukrainian criminal proceedings that can later lead to charges.

In a separate, 15-page notice of suspicion, in which the SBU set out findings from its investigation, the agency said that the decision to fire the missile was made “with the motive of deliberately killing employees of the international news agency Reuters who were engaged in journalistic activities in Ukraine”.

The document, which was published on the website of the General Prosecutor’s Office on Friday, said that Kim had received intelligence that Reuters staff were staying in Kramatorsk. It added that Kim would have been “fully aware that the individuals were civilians and not participating in the armed conflict”.

The Russian defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the SBU’s findings and has not replied to previous questions about the attack. The Kremlin also did not respond to a request for comment. Kim did not reply to messages sent by Reuters to his mobile telephone seeking comment about the SBU’s statement and whether the strike deliberately targeted Reuters staff.

The SBU did not provide evidence to support its claims, nor say why Russia targeted Reuters. In response to questions from the news agency, the security agency declined to provide further details, saying its criminal investigation was still under way and it was therefore not able to disclose such information.

Reuters has not independently confirmed any of the SBU’s claims.

Reuters said on Friday: “We note the news today from the Ukrainian security services regarding the missile attack on August 24, 2024, on the Sapphire Hotel in Kramatorsk, a civilian target more than 20 km from Russian-occupied territory.”

“The strike had devastating consequences, killing our safety adviser, Ryan Evans, and injuring members of our editorial team. We continue to seek more information about the attack. It is critically important for journalists to be able to report freely and safely,” the statement said.

Reuters declined to comment further on the allegation that its staff were deliberately targeted.

The SBU statement said Kim had been named a suspect under two articles of the Ukrainian criminal code: waging an aggressive war and violating the laws and customs of war.

“It was Kim who signed the directive and gave the combat order to fire on the hotel, where only civilians were staying,” it said.

Evans, a 38-year-old former British soldier who had worked as a safety adviser for Reuters since 2022, was killed instantly in the strike.

The SBU statement gave some details about how the strike had occurred, according to its investigation.

“To carry out the attack, the Russian colonel general involved one of his subordinate missile forces units,” the Ukrainian agency said, adding that the strike was carried out with an Iskander-M ballistic missile.

The SBU did not identify the specific unit.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Reuters safety advisor Ryan Evans holds a cat during a news assignment, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, during intense shelling in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, December 26, 2022. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo

Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey, a videographer for the news agency who was in a room across the corridor, was seriously wounded. Kyiv-based text correspondent Dan Peleschuk was also injured.

The remaining three members of the Reuters team escaped with minor cuts and scratches.

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