WASHINGTON: The White House said Thursday the US has evidence that Iranian troops are “directly engaged on the ground” in Crimea supporting Russian drone attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure and civilian population.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Iran has sent a “relatively small number” of personnel to Crimea, a part of Ukraine unilaterally annexed by Russia in contravention of international law in 2014, to assist Russian troops in launching Iranian-made drones against Ukraine.
Members of a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were dispatched to assist Russian forces on how to use the drones, according to a British government statement.
“The information we have is that the Iranians have put trainers and tech support in Crimea, but it’s the Russians who are doing the piloting,” Kirby said.
He added that the Biden administration was looking at imposing new sanctions on Tehran and would look for ways to make it harder for Tehran to sell such weapons to Russia.
The US first revealed this summer that Russia was purchasing Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles to launch against Ukraine. Iran has denied selling its munitions to Russia.
US officials believe that Iran may have deployed military personnel to assist the Russians in part because of the Russian’s lack of familiarity with the Iran-made drones. Declassified US intelligence findings showed that Russians faced technical problems with the Iranian drones soon after taking delivery of the weapons in August.
“The systems themselves were suffering failures and not performing to the standards that apparently the customers expected,” Kirby said. “So the Iranians decided to move in some trainers and some technical support to help the Russians use them with with better lethality.”
The Biden administration released further details about Iran’s involvement in assisting Russia’s war in Ukraine at a sensitive moment. The administration has levied new sanctions against Iran over the government’s brutal crackdown on antigovernment protest in recent weeks spurred by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in Iranian security custody.
Morality police had detained Amini last month for not properly covering her hair with the Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab, which is mandatory for Iranian women. Amini collapsed at a police station and died three days later.
Her death and the subsequent unrest have come as the administration tries to bring Iran back into compliance with the nuclear deal that was brokered by the Obama administration and scrapped by the Trump administration.
But Kirby said that the administration has little hope for reviving the Iran nuclear deal soon.
“We’re not focused on the on the diplomacy at this point,” Kirby said. “What we are focused on is making sure that we’re holding the regime accountable for the way they’re treating peaceful protesters in their country and supporting those protesters.”
The White House spoke out about Iranian assistance to Russia as Britain on Thursday announced new sanctions on Iranian officials and businesses as the Russians use the drones to bombard civilian infrastructure.
“These cowardly drone strikes are an act of desperation,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement. “By enabling these strikes, these individuals and a manufacturer have caused the people of Ukraine untold suffering. We will ensure that they are held to account for their actions.”
Among the individuals hit with asset freezes and travel bans by the British were Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, chairman of the armed forces general staff overseeing the army branches supplying Russia with drones; Brig. Gen. Seyed Hojjatollah Qureishi, a key Iranian negotiator in the deal;. and Brig. Gen. Saeed AgHajjani, the head the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force UAV Command.
Shahed Aviation Industries, the Iranian manufacturer of the drones being used by Russia, was also hit by an asset freeze.
US: Iranian troops in Crimea backing Russian drone strikes
https://arab.news/bgyqd
US: Iranian troops in Crimea backing Russian drone strikes
- National Security Council spokesman said Iran has sent a “relatively small number” of personnel to Crimea
- Members of a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were dispatched to assist Russian forces on how to use the drones
Iraq requests end of UN assistance mission by end-2025
- Prime PM said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission
The mission, headquartered in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, was set up with a wide mandate to help develop Iraqi institutions, support political dialogue and elections, and promote human rights.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission, known as UNAMI.
The mission’s head in Iraq often shuttles between top political, judicial and security officials in work that supporters see as important to preventing and resolving conflicts but critics have often described as interference.
“Iraq has managed to take important steps in many fields, especially those that fall under UNAMI’s mandate,” Sudani said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Iraq’s government has since 2023 moved to end several international missions, including the US-led coalition created in 2014 to fight Islamic State and the UN’s mission established to help promote accountability for the jihadist group’s crimes.
Iraqi officials say the country has come a long way from the sectarian bloodletting after the US-led invasion and Islamic State’s attempt to establish a caliphate, and that it no longer needs so much international help.
Some critics worry about the stability of the young democracy, given recurring conflict and the presence of many heavily armed military-political groups that have often battled on the streets, the last time in 2022.
Some diplomats and UN officials also worry about human rights and accountability in a country that frequently ranks among the world’s most corrupt and where activists say freedom of expression has been curtailed in recent years.
Iraq’s government says it is working to fight corruption and denies there is less room for free expression.
Somalia’s government also requested the termination of a UN political mission this week. In a letter to the Security Council, the country’s foreign minister called for the departure of the Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), which has advised the government on peace-building, security reforms and democracy for over a decade. He provided no reason.
Gaza aid could grind to a halt within days, UN agencies warn
- Humanitarian workers have sounded the alarm this week over the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid
LONDON: Dwindling food and fuel stocks could force aid operations to grind to a halt within days in Gaza as vital crossings remain shut, forcing hospitals to close down and leading to more malnutrition, United Nations aid agencies warned on Friday.
Humanitarian workers have sounded the alarm this week over the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid and people as part of Israel’s military operation in Rafah, where around 1 million uprooted people have been sheltering.
The Israeli military said a limited operation in Rafah was meant to kill fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas, which governs the besieged Palestinian territory.
“For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel,” said the UNICEF Senior Emergency Coordinator in the Gaza Strip, Hamish Young.
“This is already a huge issue for the population and for all humanitarian actors but in a matter of days, if not corrected, the lack of fuel could grind humanitarian operations to a halt,” he told a virtual briefing.
More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah in the last five days
More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah in recent days, said Young.
Israel’s military on Monday called for Gazans to leave eastern Rafah, which triggered widespread international alarm.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF said more than 100,000 had left, with the UN humanitarian agency OCHA putting the figure at more than 110,000.
All eyes have been on Rafah in recent weeks, where the population had swelled to around 1.5 million after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled fighting in other areas of Gaza.
Georgios Petropoulos, head of OCHA’s sub-office in Gaza, said the situation in the besieged Palestinian territory had reached “even more unprecedented levels of emergency.”
Countries around the world, including key Israeli backer the United States, have urged Israel not to extend its ground offensive into Rafah, citing fears of a large civilian toll.
Hamish Young, UNICEF’s senior emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip, insisted Rafah “must not be invaded” and called for the immediate flow of fuel and aid into the Gaza Strip.
“Yesterday, I was walking around the Al-Mawasi zone, that people in Rafah are being told to move to,” he said, also speaking from Rafah.
“Shelters already lined Al-Mawasi’s sand dunes and it’s now becoming difficult to move between the mass of tents and tarpaulins.
AFP journalists in the Gaza Strip early Friday witnessed artillery strikes on Rafah on the territory’s southern border with Egypt.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has conducted a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 34,900 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Turkiye says it killed 17 Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, Syria
ANKARA: Turkish forces have killed 17 militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) across various regions of northern Iraq and northern Syria, the defense ministry said on Friday.
In a post on social media platform X, the ministry said its forces had “neutralized” 10 PKK insurgents found in the Gara and Hakurk regions of northern Iraq, and in an area where the Turkish military frequently mounts cross-border raids under its “Claw-Lock Operation.”
It said another seven militants were “neutralized” in two regions of northern Syria, where Turkiye has previously carried out cross-border incursions.
The ministry’s use of the term “neutralized” commonly means killed. The PKK, which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, is designated a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union.
Turkiye’s cross-border attacks into northern Iraq have been a source of tension with its southeastern neighbor for years. Ankara has asked Iraq for more cooperation in combating the PKK, and Baghdad labelled the group a “banned organization” in March.
Last month, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan held talks with officials in Baghdad and Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, about the continued presence of the PKK in northern Iraq, where it is based, and other issues. Erdogan later said he believed Iraq saw the need to eliminate the PKK as well.
Turkiye has also staged military incursions in Syria’s north against the YPG militia, which it regards as a wing of the PKK.
Erdogan and his ministers have repeatedly said that while Ankara is working on repairing ties with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government after years of animosity, it will mount a new offensive into northern Syria to push the YPG away from its border.
Israeli demonstrators torch part of UN compound in Jerusalem
- Compound closed until proper security was restored
- Thursday’s incident was the second in less than a week
JERUSALEM: The main United Nations aid agency for Palestinians closed its headquarters in East Jerusalem after local Israeli residents set fire to areas at the edge of the sprawling compound, the agency said.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, said in a post on the social media platform X that he had decided to close the compound until proper security was restored. He said Thursday’s incident was the second in less than a week.
“This is an outrageous development. Once again, the lives of UN staff were at a serious risk,” he said.
“It is the responsibility of the State of Israel as an occupying power to ensure that United Nations personnel and facilities are protected at all times,” he said.
This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA Headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) May 9, 2024
This took place while UNRWA and other UN Agencies’ staff were on the compound.
While there were no casualties among our staff, the fire caused extensive damage… pic.twitter.com/ZqHFDNkiWC
UNRWA, set up to deal with the Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes during the 1948 war around the time of Israel’s creation, has long been a target of Israeli hostility.
Since the start of the war with Gaza Israeli officials have called repeatedly for the agency to be shut down, accusing it of complicity with the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza, a charge the United Nations strongly rejects.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem its indivisible capital, including eastern parts it captured in a 1967 war, which Palestinians seek as the future capital of an independent state.
Lazzarini said staff were present at the time of the incident but there were no casualties. However outdoor areas were damaged by the blaze, which was put out by staff after emergency services took time to respond.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli police.
Lazzarini said groups of Israelis had been staging regular demonstrations outside the UNRWA compound for the past two months and said stones were thrown at staff and buildings in the compound this week.
In footage shared with Lazzarini’s post, smoke can be seen rising near buildings at the edge of the compound while the sound of chanting and singing can be heard.
A crowd accompanied by armed men were witnessed outside the compound chanting “Burn down the United Nations,” Lazzarini said.
UKMTO reports hijacking attempt of vessel east of Yemen’s Aden
DUBAI: The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) organization said on Friday it had received a report of a failed hijacking attempt of a vessel 195 nautical miles east of Yemen’s Aden.
The vessel’s master reported being approached by a small craft carrying five or six armed people with ladders.
Houthi militants in Yemen have launched drone and missile attacks on shipping in and around the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to show support for the Palestinians in the Gaza war.
Maritime sources say pirates may be encouraged by a relaxation of security or may be taking advantage of the chaos caused by attacks on shipping by the Iran-aligned Houthis.
After firing on the vessel, the people in the small craft were forced to abort their approach when the security team on the vessel returned fire, the UKMTO reported.
The vessel and its crew are reported to be safe, and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call, it said.
