Yemen Monitor/New York/Exclusive:
Iran has once again rejected new US military claims that Yemen’s Houthi group is receiving weapons from Tehran, despite the seizure of several Iranian vessels carrying arms for the Houthis in recent months.
This came in an official letter sent on Friday by Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, who said that “these baseless accusations” were unfounded.
On Thursday, the US Defense Intelligence Agency said that the missile fired by the Houthis towards a Norwegian-flagged tanker in the Red Sea last December was likely an Iranian-made anti-ship cruise missile.
Iran has long denied arming the Houthis, likely due to a UN arms embargo imposed on the armed group since 2014. However, the US and its allies have seized multiple shipments of weapons bound for the Houthis in nearby waters. Weapons experts have also linked Houthi weapons seized on the battlefield to Iran.
In late May of this year, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard-affiliated Tasnim news agency reported that the technology for Iran’s first naval ballistic missile (named “Qadr 110”) had been transferred to the Houthis. The Houthi missile, “Tuifan,” was reportedly designed based on the “Qadr” missile, which has a range of 1800 km.
In its report on Thursday, the US Defense Intelligence Agency linked Iran to the attack on the Norwegian-flagged ship, STRINDA. The report appears to confirm the findings of a Norwegian insurance company that examined materials recovered from the ship.
On December 20, the cargo ship ” STRINDA,” which was carrying a cargo of palm oil from Malaysia to the Suez Canal, was hit by a missile, causing a large fire but no casualties among the crew. An investigation by the US military showed that parts of the missile engine found on board the ship matched parts of the Iranian-made Noor anti-ship missile.
The missile, which was developed by reverse engineering the Chinese C-802 anti-ship missile, has a range of 170 kilometers, and its upgraded version, “Qadr,” is said to be able to reach targets 300 kilometers away. The Houthis possess a similar missile called “Mandab-2” with a similar range.
Since November, the Houthis have been launching attacks on commercial ships, saying they are targeting ships linked to Israel – and later expanded to include US and British ships – which are waging a brutal attack on Gaza Strip. However, the Yemeni government and experts say that the Houthis’ targets are domestic to escape internal crises and improve their image in the region.
In response, the US and Britain have been carrying out a campaign of airstrikes since January 11 to destroy the Houthis’ capabilities to launch attacks against shipping, but after six months, they have failed to destroy the Houthis’ capabilities, which have recently increased.
Since then and until July, the Houthis have launched more than 200 attacks – according to Pentagon figures – including more than 100 attacks since the start of US airstrikes on the Yemeni mainland.
