Amid reports that Iran is providing drones for Russian invasion of Ukraine, a senior US official has said the drones used by Tehran-backed militia groups across the Middle East are supplied by China.
United States Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, August 4, that Beijing has been pushing sales of its military drones to Arab countries while doing nothing to stem the flow of other Chinese-made drones to militias backed by Iran in the region.
"It is an irony, I am the first to say, that those UAVs that these [Iranian] proxies use are Chinese… They are not provided by the state, but the state doesn't attempt to curtail that flow," apparently implying that Tehran gets the drones from China and distributes them to its proxy groups across the region.
She said that at the same time China sells its drones directly to the governments of the region. China has sold CH-4 drones to Saudi Arabia and Iraq, while the UAE has acquired the Wing Loong II, an armed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equivalent to the American MQ-9 Reaper.
“The regime in Tehran is itself so supremely isolated and not just because of our sanctions — it’s isolated because of its own actions, its own predatory destructive behavior within [the country] as well as the larger region,” she noted.
Many countries, including Israel, accuse the Islamic Republic of providing its proxies with drones and other military equipment, saying Iranian-backed forces in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as the Venezuelan government receive UAVs and other weapons.
As a new flare up of violence between Israel and Iran-backed Islamic Jihad began Friday, Esmail Ghaani (Qaani) was speaking at a memorial service for three servicemen killed in the Syrian war.
Ghaani repeated a recent refrain heard from other Iranian officials that Israel is in decline and said that “Hezbollah’s sons are making plans to bring down the last blow against the Zionist regime…and to realize the wish of Imam Khomeini to eradicate Israel from the map and the face of the Earth.”
But he also threatened the United States: “The enemies of [Iran’s] Islamic government, led by America and the Zionist regime should know that we will never stop self-sacrifice and will move forward on the path of resistance."
The Islamic Republic uses the terms “resistance” to refer to its regional foreign and military policy of arming and supporting militant groups, such as the Islamic Jihad, the Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Houthi forces in Yemen primarily for attacking Israel but also threatening Arab states friendly to the West.
“The honorable path of martyrs will be pursued until the complete destruction of the enemies of the Islamic system,” he said, meaning Iran’s Islamic Republic.
At the same time on Friday, the official Twitter account of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) wrote, “We clearly say that we interfere whenever there is the issue of opposing Israel. After this also, wherever any nation or group fights Israel, we stand behind them and support them.”
While Israel launched a series of air attacks throughout Gaza, killing about 10 members of Iran-backed Islamic Jihad including its military commander Taysir al-Jabari, the leader of the group was visiting Tehran.
During the week, Islamic Jihad’s leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah held meetings with several senior Iranian officials in Tehran including Supreme Leader's adviser Ali Akbar Velayati, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and Kamal Kharrazi, the head of Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, as well as President Ebrahim Raisi.
Ghaani became commander of IRGC’s extra-territorial Qods (Quds) Force in January 2020, when its former notorious commander Qasem Soleimani was killed in a targeted US air strike in Baghdad. The Qods Force manages most of Iran’s military, intelligence and even political affairs in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
The Qods commander did not mince words in his speech threatening the US and Israel. “These two traitor and murderous regimes will receive a response in the shortest time for each crime they commit,” and added, “The Islamic Republic makes plans to respond to all crimes that America and the usurper Zionist regime commit and will give its decisive answer at the appropriate time.”
Ghaani pledged to continue support for Hezbollah, saying, “the victors of this battle will undoubtedly be the sons of Islam.”
When Iranian officials use the word Islam, it often means Shiites, as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is portrayed as the leader of ‘Islam’. For Sunnis, however, who comprise the vast majority of Muslims, Khamenei is mostly seen as the leader of a sect that opposes their beliefs and traditions.
