Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have claimed responsibility for an apparent cruise missile strike on an airport in neighboring Saudi Arabia. The group has released video showing its fighters launching a missile that is visually similar to Iran’s Soumar ground-launched cruise missile, like reported by thedrive.com.

The footage offers additional evidence that the Yemeni militants’ arsenal, which already contains suicide drones and short-range ballistic missiles, has expanded to include another relatively advanced weapon system.

Saudi authorities confirmed the strike on Abha International Airport on June 12, 2019, saying that it had injured 26 people, eight of them seriously enough to require they go to a nearby hospital. The remaining individuals only required first aid on the scene. Abha is situated approximately 100 miles from the Yemeni border.

“The targeting of Abha airport proves that the Houthis have obtained advanced weapons from Iran,” a statement from the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen said.

The Houthis do not appear to have ascribed a name to the weapon in question, but externally it looks like Iran’s Soumar, which itself appears to be a ground-launched derivative of the Soviet-era Kh-55 air-launched cruise missile. Iranian engineers likely reverse engineered Soumar from a number of Kh-55s that the country illegally acquired on the black market from Ukraine in 2001. The Kh-55 has a range of around 1,500 miles and can carry a 1,000-pound class conventional warhead.

In 2015, Iran publicly unveiled Soumar. In February 2019, Iranian authorities revealed another missile that looked visually identical to Soumar, but called the Hoveizeh, during celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. It is unclear if these two weapons are actually different. Iran has publicly claimed that Hoveizeh has a range of nearly 840 miles.

It is unclear if the Yemeni missile is a locally assembled clone of the Iranian missile or a direct import straight from Iran, whether it has a similar range to the Soumar, how big its warhead is, and what type of guidance system it employs. A relatively simple satellite navigation arrangement would allow the Houthis to strike large, fixed targets, such as Abha International Airport’s arrival hall, using readily available map coordinates.

If the Houthis do have Soumars, or missiles with similar performance, it represents a significant increase in the group’s ability to strike targets at long distances, including Saudi Arabia. A reported range of 840 miles would put the Saudi capital Riyadh well within reach. It would also enable the Yemeni rebels to hit anywhere within the United Arab Emirates, the other major party in the Saudi-led coalition.

In December 2017, the Houthis said they fired more of their Soumar-like missiles at the Barakah nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi, a claim the UAE has denied. Though the Yemeni militants released footage of them launching the missiles in that incident, as well, there is no evidence that they hit their targets.

A low-flying cruise missile such as Soumar could also pose a particular challenge to air defense networks in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Multiple missiles, or combining them with other weapons as part of a larger strike, could overwhelm the defenders. In the new strike on Abha International Airport, Saudi authorities said they had successfully intercepted two suicide drones, which the Houthis have also obtained from Iran.

There has been a significant increase in Houthi drone attacks on Saudi Arabia since the beginning of May 2019. The group has also employed short-range ballistic missiles, which are also derived from Iranian designs or imported from Iran itself, against Saudi targets, but this appears to be the first time they used one of their cruise missiles against the country.

The Saudi-led coalition has been actively engaged in a brutal and controversial conflict against the Houthis in Yemen since 2015. Iran has been backing the group for at least as long and has aided in the expansion of its arsenal to include these and other relatively advanced weapons. The Saudis claim Iran has also supplied them with Sayyad-2 surface-to-air missiles, a derivative of American-made semi-active radar-homing RIM-66 Standard Missile left over from the regime of the Shah. Iranian support has enabled the Yemeni rebels to launch attacks on military and commercial ships using remote-controlled explosive-laden boats, too.

The cruise missiles only underscore the Houthi’s continued ability to acquire the components necessary to locally assemble these types of weapons, or obtain them directly from Iran, despite the Saudi-led coalition’s efforts to blockade the country. The United States and its allies have also worked hard to interdict illicit arms shipments to Yemen.

The Houthi cruise missile strike also comes after the U.S. government announced it had received intelligence that purportedly warned of an increased risk of attacks on U.S. forces throughout the Middle East from Iran and its regional proxies. The United States and Saudi Arabia have blamed the Yemeni rebels for attacks on four oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman off the coast of the UAE, but no group has so far taken responsibility for that incident.

It remains unclear whether or not the increase in Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia is at all related to information the U.S. government says it has received or is simply a part of the ongoing conflict between the two parties. Since May 2019, both sides have been fighting each other despite an already shaky U.N.-brokered ceasefire that required the Yemeni rebels to vacate a number of strategic port cities.

“In light of these terrorist and immoral transgressions by the Houthis, the coalition will take strict measures urgently and carefully to deter them,” Saudi Arabian Colonel Turki Al Maliki, the top spokesman for the coalition in Yemen, said on June 12, 2019. “The terrorist elements responsible for planning and carrying out this attack will be held accountable.”

Whatever the exact reason for the Houthi cruise missile strike on Abha International Airport, it is another clear indication that the group continues to obtain very capable weapons from Iran and presents a real and increasing threat to its regional opponents beyond Yemen’s borders.

Regime militias on Sunday-Monday night continued their bombardment with heavy weapons on areas held by the armed opposition in the northern Lattakia countryside. Sporadic clashes continued on the Kabina, al-Rabiyeh, Atira, Zahiyeh, al-Seraf and other fronts in the mountainous areas according to Al-Modon’s correspondent, Khalid al-Khatib.

Regime-Russian militias sent more military reinforcements from the Fifth Corps, a large portion of them fighters who carried out “reconciliations” in Daraa, under the command of the former armed opposition leader Ahmed al-Awda. The new reinforcements concentrated on the top fronts with the opposition in the Jabel al-Turkman, and on the front lines from al-Seraf and Rabiyeh to the area between the two clusters of mountains, Ardas Dagh and Nour Dagh, in the furthest northwest adjacent to the Syrian-Turkish border.

The redeployment of the militias and the reinforcements sent to the northern Lattakia countryside fronts come after they suffered heavy losses on Sunday in three land attacks and operations carried out by the opposition against their positions. The opposition described the operations as sophisticated and promised to continue them with the aim of bleeding the militias and disrupting their war efforts, concentrated on the northwestern Hama fronts. The militias have lost more than 40 fighters, including three officers.

The first operation by the opposition struck Tel Abou Asa’ad, and the second struck militia positions and their first lines of defense in Rabiyeh. This put a large group of regime militia fighters in range of rockets and mortars, which was followed by clashes at medium range. The second operation was joined by the “Rouse the Believers” operations room, alongside fighters from the National Front for Liberation. It was the biggest operation to target the town of al-Atirah, in which more than 25 fighters were killed. Military vehicles were destroyed and the attackers seized weapons and ammunition from the militias’ main site in the town’s school.

The special missions units of Ahrar al-Sham undertook the planning of the third operation in the northern Lattakia countryside, and played the biggest role, alongside fighters from other groups in the National Front and the salafi-jihadi organizations.

An opposition military source told Al-Modon that the opposition is concentrating on operations for infiltration and close-range targeting of regime-Russian militia positions in particular, with the aim of bleeding them and scattering their defenses. The attackers have chosen the fronts recently taken over by the Fifth Corps, from the Iranian observation point to the last mountain cluster near the Syrian-Turkish border. According to the source, the opposition does not want to draw the Iranian militias into the battle or provoke them at the current time.

An Iraqi security man was killed and four others were wounded after a criminal hurled a grenade at them in Baghdad, a security source was quoted as saying, like reported by iraqinews.com.

“A security force launched a campaign to arrest a dangerous criminal in the Hussainiat al-Ma’amel area, northeast of Baghdad,” the source told Alghad Press on Tuesday.

“The criminal hurled a grenade at the troops once they approached him, leaving a security man dead and four others wounded,” the source added.

Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

The surge in violence between armed groups and government forces has resulted in over five million internally displaced persons across Iraq and left more than 11 million in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

A roadside bomb targeted a convoy of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) military vehicles near Raqqa in Syria, leaving at least four Kurdish fighters killed, like reported by basnews.com.

The blast has also injured nine other fighters, according to Sputnik.

The attack took place while a large convoy of SDF vehicles were passing through the village of Abu Susa, some 15 kilometers to the north of Raqqa.

At least four military vehicles of the Kurdish forces were burned as the result of the explosion.

SDF is a Kurdish-led force in Syria that spearheaded the war against the Islamic State (IS) with the support of the US-led Coalition.

Syrian opposition officers have documented the site of several Iranian missile caches in the country including in areas Israel has demanded that Iran vacate, like reported by jpost.com.

According to a report in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, the National Liberation Front which is made up of 150 dissident officers, documented the presence of Iranian Fateh-110 and Zulfiqar short range ballistic missiles and Russian-made Scud missiles

The group also found that Toophan-1 anti-tank missiles are being stored in the strategic T-4 airport in Syria’s Homs province with other rocket caches east of Homs in Jubb el-Jarah, in Aleppo’s al-Safira, and south of Damascus.

Iran began developing the Fateh-110 , a mobile short range ballistic missile reportedly capable of carrying nuclear or biological warheads, in the early 1990s and has since developed five variants with various ranges and payloads. 

The Fateh-110/I can carry a 650kg payload to a maximum range of 200 km, the Fateh-110/II has a range of 250 km and a payload of 450kg, the Fateh-110/II has a range of 300km and a payload of 650kg. The Fateh-110/IV also has a range of 300km with a payload of 650kg is said to have a guidance system and precision targeting. Last year Tehran announced another version of the Fateh, called the Al-Mobeen or “The Divine Conquest” with a range of 300-500 km.

The Zulfiqar a variant of the Fateh-110 and has a reported range of 750km and possess a cluster munition warhead. According to Iranian media the missile has an accuracy of within 10 meters. 

According to the report, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has also moved its leadership from Damascus to the mountains north of the capital because of repeated strikes by Israel.

Israel has warned repeatedly that it would not allow for an Iranian presence in Syria and has admitted to hundreds of airstrikes to prevent the transfer of weapons such as ammunition to surface-to-air missile kits to Hezbollah in Lebanon the entrenchment of its forces on the Golan.

It is estimated that Hezbollah has some 30,000 rockets with a range of 10 kilometers, another 40,000 with a range of 40 kilometers, some 200 rockets with a range of 300 kilometers, and only about 10 rockets with a range of up to 500 kilometers.

Israel is concerned that Iran is not only trying to consolidate its grip in Syria where it could establish a forward base to attack Israel, but that it is trying to build an advanced weapons factories in Syria and Lebanon in order to manufacture GPS-guided missiles that could hit targets with greater accuracy. 

Iran has been moving its assets from areas repeatedly struck by Israel to locations closer to the border with Iraq, specifically the T4 Airbase strategically located between Homs and Palmyra.

The air base has been attacked repeatedly by alleged Israeli airstrikes, most recently last week when an advanced weapon system was destroyed just days after two rockets were launched towards Israel’s Hermon ski resort.

An official source has warned of serious Islamic State (IS) resurgence in certain parts of Iraq, stressing on further intelligence efforts, according to basnews.com.

The source was quoted by an Arab newspaper as saying that terrorist activities by the extremist group’s sleeper cells have lately increased mainly in the areas of Baghdad, Nineveh, Kirkuk, and Salahaddin provinces, as cited by Iraqi News.

The source also called for wide-scale military operations to eliminate the insurgent group’s remnants in the country.

The Islamic State was announced defeated in late 2017, but the group’s sleeper cells still impose a great threat to the security forces and civilians.

It appears definitive to most observers of the Syrian civil war that dictator Bashar al-Assad will remain in power, due in no small part to the support of his Russian and Iranian allies, like reported by thecipherbrief.com.

The backing of Putin and Khamenei has fortified the Assad regime by providing troops, weapons, and training throughout critical periods in the conflict. But the assistance offered by Moscow and Tehran is not without strings. Indeed, both will seek repayment in the form of military bases, weapons sales, and access to Syrian territory for logistics and forward defense. There are is also an implicit understanding that Russia and Iran will gain access to valuable contracts for rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and energy sector.

The relationship between Russia and Iran is based on pragmatism, some overlapping interests, and a shared antipathy toward the U.S. The alliance is perhaps best summed up by recalling the popular adage: ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Keeping a leash on Washington and the West’s influence in Syria remains a top priority for Assad’s supporters. For Iran, Syria represents a base of influence outside its borders and presents Tehran with the possibility of fulfilling its long sought after land bridge across the region. Russia, a long-time supporter of Syria, is determined to keep and expand its Mediterranean naval presence in Tartus. Even though Russia and Iran have expended significant resources fighting in Syria, the conflict has also provided each country with the opportunity to train together, as well as with Lebanese Hezbollah, and offer their respective militaries a real-world battlefield laboratory to innovate and deploy new weapons systems, including drones.

Iran’s support for Assad has primarily been through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and by extension, a growing network of Shia foreign fighters and militias. Russia has provided crucial air support to help Assad beat back the rebels, while in the process contributing to atrocities and war crimes by relentlessly bombing medical facilities and other civilian installations. The Assad regime is dependent on Russia and Iran both financially and militarily. Without Iran, Damascus will struggle to maintain an effective ground presence and without Russia, it would be unable to secure its territorial gains and expand its military positions in contested areas. This dynamic will not change in the near-term as Assad gears up for a final push to win the war, with his forces closing in on Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria.

With the war potentially nearing its end, Russian and Iranian proxies are growing more aggressive in solidifying control over criminal rackets and potential sources of patronage. Where these proxy forces operate in close proximity, there will be more chances for misunderstanding and short-term disagreement over which force will control territory and have access to the spoils of war. As each side moves into position to carve out their own fiefdoms, minor skirmishes are possible, although a broader conflagration remains unlikely, especially as Russia and Iran have long-term investments in mind, as each negotiates contracts to help Assad rebuild the country.

A high-ranking Syrian army commander was assassinated on Tuesday near the city of Sweida in the war-torn country’s southwest, dozens of miles from the border with Israel.

Brig. Gen. Jamal al-Ahmad was gunned down by unknown assailants while touring the sector, the intelligence blog Intelli Times and London-based pan-Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat both reported.

According to the Intelli Times, Ahmad was among a group of Syrian officers tasked with maintaining ties with Hezbollah in the Sweida area, and particularly with Hezbollah’s commander in southern Syria, Munir Ali Naim Shaiti,also known as Hajj Hashem, who is responsible for building the Lebanese terrorist organization’s military infrastructure in the Syrian Golan Heights.

Although the identity of Ahmad’s assassins is still unknown, the enemies of the Syrian regime and its Iranian and Hezbollah allies are Israel and rebel groups still active in the country. The ability of these insurgent groups to carry out an assassination of this type has drastically decreased over the past year and their presence in southern Syria has been virtually eradicated. Another possible suspect is armed Druze groups who have quarreled in the past with the regime but have since made amends with it following the expulsion of the rebels from the area.

A day before the assassination, a Syrian opposition website exposed several Syrian army brigades and divisions that are hosting Hezbollah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fighters in the country’s south, and in Sweida in particular.

The reports expose the deep entrenchment of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Shi’ite militias within the Syrian army’s combat units on the Golan border with Israel.

Olli Heinonen, who headed the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) security team and served as the organizations’ deputy director general, on Wednesday morning told Army Radio that Israelis on the whole are not aware of the severity of the Iranian threat, like reported by inn.com.

“Israelis need to be worried, and the Gulf states also have reason for concern,” Heinonen said. “How will you be able to ensure your security if Iran achieves nuclear abilities?”

n the full interview, which will be aired Thursday morning, Heinonen said that despite IAEA’s claims, Iran can develop nuclear weapons in up to six to eight months.

Slamming IAEA’s handling of the threat, Heinonen said the agency ignores Tehran’s race to achieve nuclear weapons. In his opinion, even the Trump administration’s decision to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or “Iran deal” serves Iran’s purposes.

“The Ayatollahs can handle the new sanctions, and in the meantime they’re making new centrifuges,” he explained.

Russian diplomacy is well known for its apparent readiness to engage with all parties to the multiple conflicts in the Middle East, and this characteristic has recently produced another awkward tangle of opportunistic intrigues, like reported by jamestown.org.

President Vladimir Putin fancies himself a master of communicating with difficult counterparts, but he is by no means a grandmaster capable of playing chess on several boards at once. He simultaneously wants to be seen as an exterminator of terrorism and a perfect mediator; thus, a Taliban delegation as well as a contingent of Afghan politicians landed last week (May 28) in Moscow, while new reports proliferated about forceful counter-terrorist operations in Astrakhan, Vladimir and Dagestan (Znak.ru, May 30). The most complicated entanglement involves relations with Iran, with whom Russia needs to maintain a partnership on the Syrian battlefield, rather than merely good-neighborly ties. But it does not necessarily want to openly side with the Islamic Republic in the latter’s fast-unfolding confrontation with the United States and its Gulf allies.

Russia would normally relish, at least rhetorically, opposing the mounting US pressure on Iran, but it can hardly resist the efforts of another valued regional partner—Saudi Arabia—to build an anti-Iranian coalition of the Gulf states (Kommersant, May 28). Moscow felt obliged to clarify, amidst news reports alleging a scuttled arms deal, that it did not refuse to sell Tehran S-400 surface-to-air missiles; according to Russia, there had never been any discussion of such a deal at all (TASS, May 31). Meanwhile, Russian military experts speculate that minor naval clashes in the Gulf could escalate to a full-blown military conflict (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 29). Seeking to persuade the Iranian leadership to refrain from provocative actions, the Kremlin dispatched Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to Tehran, where he expressed understanding of the Iranian position on the nuclear deal; but he was not granted any high-level meetings (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, May 29). Russian protestations against new US sanctions on Iran have effectively been undercut by China, which quietly stopped its oil imports from this troubled supplier (Rosbalt, May 29).

It is also becoming more difficult than ever for Moscow to reconcile its support for Iran with the desire to build close ties with Israel. Putin highly values his personal rapport with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the latter’s failure to form a coalition makes new Israeli elections unavoidable (Kommersant, May 30). While the Russian top brass abhors Israel’s continuing air strikes in Syria, Putin tends to ignore them and is eager to see a meeting later this month between US National Security Advisor John Bolton, Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat and Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Security Council (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 30). This flexibility stands in contrast with the Russian foreign ministry’s firm rejection of the US initiative to organize a “Peace to Prosperity” economic workshop in Manama, Bahrain, in late June (Mid.ru, May 28).

Russian intrigues involving Iran, Israel and the US naturally center primarily on Syria, but the “victorious” military intervention there brings new troubles for Moscow. The Syrian campaign is increasingly unpopular among Russia’s general public, so the official propaganda prefers to keep quiet about continuing airstrikes, leading to speculation about possible looming withdrawal (Newsru.com, May 30). The safety of Russian bases depends on continuing close cooperation on the ground with pro-Iranian militias, but the prospect of an Iranian base being permitted to emerge in Latakia Province is a big worry (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 26). Furthermore, Moscow has to treat Hezbollah as a legitimate stakeholder in the Syrian war despite this group’s irreconcilable conflict with Israel. Russia has tried to work with its dubious partner to prompt some return of refugees from Lebanon (Russiancouncil.ru, May 30). These “humanitarian” activities are supposed to provide cover for the long-planned but still delayed offensive on the rebel-controlled province of Idlib.

Standing in the way of this potentially devastating operation is Turkey, which has its own plans for northern Syria and does not want Bashar al-Assad’s forces anywhere near Turkish borders (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 30). Putin called President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan again last week, but no signs of a compromise on the Idlib issue were reported (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, May 30). Putin is perhaps reluctant to put more pressure on Erdoğan because the main concern for the Russian leader is the execution of the perfect political coup (rather than a business deal) of exporting S-400s to Turkey (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 26). This nearly accomplished breach of integrity of the Turkish air-defense system has been escalating the quarrel between Ankara and Washington. Moscow has gleefully followed these developments, expecting to see a further deepening of disagreements within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) regarding strategic plans and activities in the wider Black Sea area (Kommersant, May 30).

Turkey is, indeed, in a tight spot due to its inflated ambitions for playing too many key roles. But Russia hardly stands to benefit from trying to build a “strategic partnership” with a NATO member state. Moscow’s reputation in the Middle East is tainted not only by its hollow pledges of support to various clashing causes but also by a reluctance or inability to commit serious resources to its political goals. Even in Syria, Russia seeks to sustain its engagement on the cheap, employing the now-infamous quasi-private military contractors to perform many of the most difficult and dirtiest tasks (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 26). This propensity to employ low-cost instruments to manipulate high-risk conflicts endangers the interests of real stakeholders, from Israel to Iran, and curtails any possible content of high-level dialogue with Washington, which is Putin’s persistent desire.

For Russia, the Middle East is a convenient not-too-close neighborhood where China, the European Union, the US and many other global actors all have major interests at stake in multiple overlapping conflicts that upset attempts to promote a new world order (Carnegie.ru, May 29). Moscow suspects that every step toward establishing such an order diminishes its role, which depends upon gaining maximal influence with minimal commitment. What makes the Middle East crucially important in world politics is the unique position of the Gulf states as indispensable suppliers of hydrocarbons, and Russia has no interest in ensuring uninterrupted flows of oil from this conflict-rich region. The parties to these conflicts are gradually realizing that there is no longer much need to counter-balance US dominance in the region; instead, the challenge of ensuring sustained US engagement is growing. Russia is not particularly useful in addressing this challenge—its short-term multi-vector opportunism only works to further stir instability.