Russia Launches 25 Iranian Drones Against Ukraine’s South
Russia launched 25 Iranian kamikaze drones on the southern parts of the Odesa region on Sunday, where Ukraine has its crucial grain export Danube ports.
Russia launched 25 Iranian kamikaze drones on the southern parts of the Odesa region on Sunday, where Ukraine has its crucial grain export Danube ports.
The Danube has become Ukraine's main route for exporting grain since July, when Russia quit a UN and Turkey-brokered deal that had given safe passage to Kyiv's exports of grains, oilseeds and vegetables oils via the Black Sea.
Sunday's attack took place the day before Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan are due to hold talks in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. Turkey has been pressing to revive the grain deal.
Ukraine's South Military Command said on social media that at least two civilians were injured in the early morning attack on what it called "civil infrastructure of the Danube".
The Ukrainian Air Force said air defence systems shot down 22 of the 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia.
Iran has been supplying hundreds of its Shahed drones to Russia since mid-2022 but denies there were delivered to be used for attacks on Ukraine. The Western alliance supporting Ukraine has imposed sanctions on individuals and companies involved in supplying the drones.
The military said a fire that resulted from the attack at one facility was quickly extinguished.
The Russian Defense Ministry was quoted by Interfax as saying that a group of Russian drones successfully struck fuel depots at the Reni port used by the Ukrainian military.
"Russian terrorists continue to attack port infrastructure in the hope of provoking a food crisis and famine in the world," the Ukrainian president's chief of staff Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.
According to police and security sources, four Kurds were shot dead and 15 people were wounded during the clashes in the city, controlled by the Iraqi government and home to diverse groups of people including Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs.
Amir Shwani, a spokesman for Kirkuk police, said in a statement that a curfew had been lifted and vehicles were moving normally in the city on Sunday, but security forces had deployed additional troops to "prevent violence and protect civilians."
The city has been a point of contention, witnessing disputes between Kurdish forces and the Iraqi government. Iranian-backed militias have recently escalated aggression in the region, firing rockets to target gas fields on the road to Sulaymaniyah, a large city in the Kurdistan autonomous region about 100 kilometers west of Kirkuk.
The clashes followed days of tensions over a building in Kirkuk that was once the headquarters for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) but was used by the Iraqi army as a base since 2017. Iraq's federal supreme court issued an urgent ruling on Sunday obliging the government to delay procedures regarding the handover of the building to the KDP.
Kirkuk, an oil-rich province in northern Iraq along the fault lines between the Kurdish autonomous region and areas controlled by Iraq's Shiite-dominated central government, has been the focus of some of the country's worst post-Islamic State violence. Arab residents and minority groups, who say they suffered under Kurdish rule, have protested the KDP's return to the city.
“Dozens of protesters, mainly members of the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia and their supporters, have set up tents near the JOC headquarters since Sunday evening in protest to the potential return of the KDP. They have blocked access to the highway and vowed to continue their demonstration until [Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani retracts his decision,” Rudaw Kurdish news agency reported reported.
Similar clashes are also happening between Kurdish-led forces and groups of Islamic militias and tribes in eastern Syria. The violence has killed 49 fighters from both sides and eight civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
The involvement of the pro-Iran militias also has another dimension. Late in August, Iran and Iraq formalized an agreement to dismantle Iranian Kurdish dissident factions stationed in the northern reaches of Iraq and relocate them from their bases.
Nasser Kanaani, spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said the Iraqi government had undertaken the commitment "to disarm the armed terrorist groups stationed in Iraq's territory by September 19, and subsequently, evacuate and transfer them from their military bases to camps designated by the Iraqi government."
Historically, Iran has intermittently executed targeted operations against the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran (KDPI) and other Iranian Kurdish dissident elements operating within Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, adjacent to Iran's borders.
Various Iranian dissident factions in Iraq have aligned their allegiances with the two principal Iraqi Kurdish parties: the Kurdistan Democratic Party, headquartered in Erbil, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, with its stronghold in Suleimaniyah.
Reps. Mark Green (R., Tenn.), the House Homeland Security chair, and August Pfluger (R., Texas) have written to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Counterterrorism Center Christine Abizaid, “to request additional information about the persistent threats posed by Iran’s campaign to direct operations against U.S. persons or other targets in the U.S. homeland.”
Since the targeted killing of Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s top military and intelligence operator in the Middle East, in January 2020, the Iranian regime has repeatedly threatened revenge of former Trump administration officials.
The Justice Department revealed on August 10, 2022, that an operative of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard tried to hire a hitman in the US to kill former National Security Adviser John Bolton.
Bolton told Iran International Television at the time that he was not surprised an indictment was unsealed because he was kept informed “in general terms until late in 2021 when it was determined I would again get secret service protection.”
Congressmen Green and Pfluger citing Bolton’s case also mentioned threats against former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others. “Further, credible threats by Iran have continued to persist against Pompeo as well as his former top aide, Brian Hook, who served as special representative for Iran during the prior administration.”
The letter cited Iran’s militant proxy the Hezbollah, which is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States, and its global reach. It cited testimony by FBI Director Wray who told Congress that the Lebanese Shiite group has sent operatives “to build terrorist infrastructure worldwide. The arrests of individuals in the United States allegedly linked to Hizballah’s main overseas terrorist arm, and their intelligence collection and procurement efforts, demonstrate Hizballah’s interest in long-term contingency planning activities here in the Homeland.”
The lawmakers expressed concern that the Biden administration continues to engage with Iran for a nuclear deal, while these activities continue.
“To assist the Committee’s examination of the threats posed by Iran in the U.S. homeland, we request that DHS, the FBI, and NCTC provide Committee staff a classified briefing no later than September 14, 2023 about these ongoing threats, to include but not limited to, information about the number of active plots by Iran or its proxies against U.S. persons living in the United States, as well as information about your respective agencies’ coordination efforts for threat intelligence to counter Iran’s activities,” the letter said.
In August the administration agreed to allow $6 billion of frozen Iranian funds in South Korea to be unblocked, after allowing $2.7 billion to be released from Iraq in June. Although the reason for these steps is presented as a hostage release deal, numerous reports have indicated the possible existence of more secret arrangements.
Iran has reportedly reduced the pace of its uranium enrichment, while the Biden administration look the other way as Tehran boosts its oil exports to China in violation of US sanctions. Iran’s oil exports in August reached nearly 2 million barrels per day, regaining almost all its lost market since the Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear agreement and imposed sanctions in 2018.
