Iran Making World Unsafe By Drone Supply To Russia – US House Speaker

“If it is proven to us that Iranian drones are being used in the Ukraine war against people, we should not remain indifferent,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, as reported by Reuters.

The Iranian foreign ministry website and official news agencies last Friday reported Amir-Abdollahian denying claims at a European summit last week that Iran had supplied Russia with military drones deployed in the Ukraine war. The European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States all last week introduced sanctions against three Iranian military commanders and a defense company over the reported supply.

Abdollahian was last Friday reported as saying Tehran was “strongly opposed to war and to the arming of any warring side.” The minister said Iran had “told the Ukrainian officials to show any evidence they have that would prove the use of Iranian drones in the Ukraine war.”

Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani reiterated early on Monday that Tehran had not supplied Moscow with munitions for the war in Ukraine despite “defense cooperation.”

Volte-face?

Amir-Abdollahian’s latest remarks suggested a shift if not a volte-face. But it was unclear if he was implying “Iranian drones” might have reached Russia without any official sanction, or without the specific knowledge of the foreign ministry. Alternatively, some analysts have long argued Iran often employs a tactic of ‘plausible deniability.’

US officials began claiming back in July, without offering conclusive evidence, that Iran had agreed to supply drones to Russia. Security analysis have said they could offer Moscow a cheaper, if far less effective, alternative to missiles.

Iranian officials have denied these claims, but they have talked up the Iranian-made weapons. Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a military adviser to Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei, claimed October 18 that 22 countries had expressed an interest in buying Iranian military drones.

‘Giving them to X and Y’

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself in a tweet October 19 compared past western dismissal of Iranian drone-manufacturing with their current fears: “A few years ago they questioned the authenticity of photos of Iranian-made advanced drones & missiles and claimed they’re photoshopped. Now they’re saying Iranian drones are dangerous, why are you selling & giving them to X & Y.”

The issue of drones was also taken up last week at the United Nations Security Council, where France, the United Kingdom, and the United States presented a letter arguing that it would contravene a provision in UNSC Resolution 2231, which in 2015 endorsed the Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). The controversy at the UNSC adds a further challenge in the frozen talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA.

In a further political twist, Ukraine is highlighting Iran-Russia links as a way of justifying its arguments that the US and EU should supply it more advanced weapons.

According to a Syrian military source, the "bursts of rockets” were fired from north of Israel at about 02:00 p.m. local time, claiming that “the army air defenses intercepted the missiles and downed most of them.”

The source told SANA that one soldier was injured as the result of the attack, and some material damage was also inflicted to the targets. 

There are unconfirmed reports that a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in the Monday attack. Iran International cannot independently verify the reports.

Israel has been attacking Iranian and Iran-backed targets in Syria since 2017, but recently it has intensified attacks on Syrian airports -- including Damascus International Airport -- to disrupt Tehran’s increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon including Hezbollah, regional diplomatic and intelligence sources say. 

In addition to Iran’s support for militants in Syria and Iraq, Tehran’s military support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine has also ruffled feathers in the international community.

Earlier in the day, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid told The Jerusalem Post that Israel is growingly concerned by the “dangerous closeness” between Russia and Iran over the supply of drones by Tehran and is holding close consultations with American and Ukranian officials about the developing situation.

Managing Director of Iran Gas Engineering and Development Company Reza Noshadi told the official oil ministry’s news agency SHANA on Sunday that Iran's "industrial successes are not limited to the fields of missiles and drones."

Noting that the US sanctions on Russia are aimed at excluding Moscow from the gas market, he said that “In recent years, the US has widely set up LNG production plants, and recently, with the all-out embargo on Russia and then the explosion in the Nord Stream gas pipeline, it effectively eliminated one of its biggest competitors in gas exports.”

The Kremlin claims that sanctions have prevented the proper maintenance of Russian gas infrastructures and facilities, saying that, in particular, they blocked the return of a Siemens turbine that had been undergoing repairs in Canada.

In September, Vladimir Putin said at the Vladivostok forum that "Give us a turbine, we will turn Nord Stream on tomorrow", referring to a vital gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.

Both Russia and Iran hold some of the world's largest gas reserves, and are both under strict US sanctions. 

Along with the US, European countries and the UK have been intensifying pressure on the Islamic Republic over its supply of military drones to Russia. 

Iran has also reportedly promised to send its own Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar surface-to-surface missiles to Russia for strikes on Ukrainian cities and troops.

The Islamic Republic’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman claimed Monday that relations between Iran and Russia are not against any party and do not violate the international legal framework.

Naser Kanani told a news conference that “those who accuse Iran of supporting one side of the war are sending weapons to a warring side themselves,” implicitly referring to large Western military assistance to Ukraine.

Ukraine, the United States and Western countries say Iran has supplied military drones to Russia that are being used to attack civilian and infrastructure targets, and have begun imposing sanctions on Tehran.

Kanaani also rejected accusations that Iran has sent forces to Russian-occupied Crimea saying that “this is a media war to distract minds from the destructive role of Westerners in the Ukraine war.”

The US had earlier said that Iranian experts were in Crimea helping the Russians use Iranian supplied drones.

His comments come as Iran’s Supreme Leader in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin back in July clearly expressed support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

While describing war as “brutal and hard,” Iran’s leader suggested that had Russia not “taken the initiative, the other side, with its own initiative would have created a war anyway.”

In that meeting Khamenei said “NATO is a dangerous creature [that] didn’t recognize any limits or borders. If you cannot stand up to them in Ukraine, then a little while later, with the excuse of Crimea, they would have started this war anyway.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, Kanani accused US officials of “telling lies and being hypocritical” regarding the talks over reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.

“If the Americans say the negotiations have stopped, why do they send messages through intermediaries?” reiterated Kanani, adding that “it is clear Washington wants to return to the agreement but not pay its costs.”

His allegations come as US State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, on October 19 said reviving the 2015 nuclear deal is “not our focus right now.”

“Nothing we’ve heard in recent weeks suggests they have changed their position. And so right now our focus is on the remarkable bravery and courage that the Iranian people are exhibiting through their peaceful demonstrations,” he stated.

During his Monday statements, the Iranian spokesperson also claimed that the West is supporting anti-regime protests in Iran saying, “If Americans have bet on the domestic developments of Iran these days, they have made a mistake.”

Tehran routinely blames the West and Israel for negative events in Iran, not willing to admit that many of its citizens oppose clerical rule.

He also criticized recent sanctions by the European Union and the United Kingdom imposed for the brutal crackdown on protesters in Iran, stating that “supporting disorder, insecurity and instability is an illegal behavior. It is an irresponsible act to support rioters and those who have a history of terrorist activities.”

This comes as the Islamic Republic is designated by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984 for supporting and organizing militant groups around the region.

In another part of his comments, Kanani claimed that relations between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are on the right track and the sides are having “constructive ties.”

However, Wall Street Journal correspondent Laurence Norman says there has been zero significant contact between Iran and the IAEA recently calling the claims “a heap of falsehoods”.

The military drills kicked off in Pasveh District in Piranshahr County on Saturday with the participation of combat forces of the 164th Mobile Assault Battalion of the Army’s Ground Forces. 

The battalion’s commander Colonel Hamid Firouzjai said, “The forces partaking in the exercise use organizational, light, semi-heavy and heavy weapons,” adding that the forces carry out heliborne parachute operations, overnight raids, helicopter combat, control of communication roads, capture of heights and offensive destruction and urban warfare during the drill. 

Amid nationwide protests in Iran sparked by the death in custody of a Kurdish girl in mid-September, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched several rounds of attacks against Iraqi Kurdistan, apparently aimed at intimidating the Kurds.

The maneuver took place only days after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard held another drill in the northwestern region of Aras along the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. In mid-September, Iran warned that it would not tolerate any seizure of territory from Armenia by Azerbaijan after military clashes broke out between its two northern neighbors.

Armenia accuses Azerbaijan of attacking its towns to escape negotiating over the status of the mainly Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.