CHICAGO: A senior US delegation led by special envoy for Iran Rob Malley is attending meetings in Riyadh this week focused on confronting threats posed by Tehran in the region.
During a press briefing on Monday attended by Arab News, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Dana Stroll laid out the network of Iranian terrorist activity that is spreading around the world and specifically targeting members of the Gulf Cooperation Council doing.
Straul said the US-GCC meetings that began on Monday are focused on countering Iran’s continued threats to Saudi Arabia, the wider Gulf and US forces deployed in Iraq and Syria.
“Iranian aggression … is a serious concern,” she said: “Increased Iranian and Russian military cooperation … has serious implications for security in the Middle East.”
Regarding threats to Saudi Arabia from the Houthis, he said Yemeni militias have shown no interest in peace and have used the recent ceasefire to arm themselves with Iranian weapons.
“We have not seen any change in Iranian willingness or activity to transfer weapons to the Houthis,” Straul said. “We haven’t seen the Houthis as good-natured actors in extending the ceasefire … or making a genuine movement toward a political process.”
He said the danger of Iran providing weapons to Russia is that Tehran could see how they are used in Ukraine, improve it, and apply them in its own violence against Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
Straul said US forces in Iraq and Syria are “under constant threat from Iranian-allied militia groups who seek to continuously harass our forces,” which “undermines” their ability to combat Daesh.
“It also directly undermines, threatens and jeopardizes the recovery efforts of local communities who only a few years ago … were facing the worst maladies and atrocities under the Khilafat regime. It’s really destabilizing,” she said.
“We hold Iran accountable and responsible for these attacks because Iran has been providing these groups with weapons, training, equipment and guidance.”
The US-GCC meetings, which are scheduled to continue through February 16 in Riyadh, focus on four areas of concern: air and missile security, maritime security, the Iran Working Group focused on Tehran-sponsored violence, and the Terrorism Working Group.
US General Bradley Cooper, who attended the briefing, said US-GCC cooperation has resulted in seized weapons being shipped by Iran, most of them to its allied militias in Yemen.
“In just the past two months, five major interventions at sea resulted in US and partner maritime forces seizing more than 5,000 weapons, 1.6 million rounds of ammunition, 7,000 proximity fuses for rockets, more than 2,000 kilograms of propellant for rocket-propelled Have done grenades, and $60 million in illegal drugs,” Cooper said.
“In 2021, we seized more than $1 billion in illegal drugs and 15,000 illegal weapons, all headed to Yemen.”
The US is working with GCC partners this week to expand offshore surveillance zones to protect those countries from Iranian terrorism.