CNN
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Iran’s armed proxies are putting pressure on key points in the Middle East as Tehran is trying to restructure its regional impact.
Yemen’s Tehran’s Hooti allies last week ended a few months of calm in the Red Sea, and took a strike on two commercial vessels driving through key waterways. Iraqi proxies are suspected of disruptions in oil production in the Kurdish region, and the shipments of hundreds of rockets bound by Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been intercepted by Syrian forces over the past few months.
The increased activity by proxy reflects Iran’s determination to continue supporting a network of destructive armed groups, despite not stopping the recent US attack on Israeli soil. But so far, neither the US nor Iran appears to be trying to make a big compromise.
“Iran never tried to stop the group supply,” said Michael Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, specializing in military and security issues in Iraq, Iran and the Gulf countries.
“They may not be able to send this on a large or regular basis — more may be intercepted, but if you are now a QUDS force of revolutionary security (Iranian) then what you are trying to show is, “We are still there, we are unharmed, nothing has changed.”
Last month, Israel launched an unprecedented attack on Iran, targeting and killing key military figures, including head of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Hossein Salami, who is important to maintain and expand the Islamic Republic’s regional proxy network.
But even if Iran is upset by the loss of key military figures, it shows that it is still keen to arm those proxies, which still sees it as strategic assets to expand regional leverage.
Just three days after a ceasefire was declared between Iran and Israel, the ship carrying 750 tons of Iran missiles and military equipment, including missiles, drone engines and radar systems, was intercepted in the Red Sea by forces loyal to Yemen’s exiled government, the US Central Command said Wednesday. He added that “large Iranian weapons shipping” is doomed to the Houtis.
The intercept marked the “largest weapon attack” in the history of the Yemeni National Resistance Force (NRF), according to the US military.
Iran’s foreign ministry denied that it sent weapons and called it a “deceived attempt” by the US to “distract public opinion.”
Yemeni Houtis used Iranian weapons to launch attacks on both Israel and commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Last week, attacks on a Greek-owned ship killed four crews, wounded others, and 11 people disappeared, European Union Naval Operations told CNN. The six on board were captured by Houthis, who told CNN by Vanguard Tech, a UK-based maritime risk management company.
A few days ago, Houthis used unmanned boats, missiles and drones to target the magical sea, a bulk carrier in the Liberian Formation.
The attack that sunk two ships appeared to indicate an escalation of force, first recorded this year after months of calm in busy waterways.
Over the past few months, suspected groups of Iranian support groups have increased attacks on Iraq’s western allies, destabilizing oil production in the country’s Kurdish-controlled regions.
The two oil fields run by US companies said on Wednesday that Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) official Aziz Ahmad was attacked after a “satch of drone attacks” by “criminal militias.”
“KRG welcomed US investments and businesses. Now, the same investors are pushed out in a calculated campaign to strangle us financially,” Ahmad said in X.
A spokesman for KRG Peshawa Hawramani told CNN that the drone attack was “intentionally to destroy energy infrastructure,” and that KRG “cannot use this as a leverage for contracts or rely on it as a source of revenue, as it ensures that it is not capable of producing oil and gas.”
The KRG’s Home Ministry condemned the attack earlier this month on a popular mobilising unit, a paramilitary force based in Iraq, supported by mainly Shia Iran.
“These attacks are being carried out with the aim of creating chaos,” the Interior Ministry said earlier this month after a bomb-bearing drone landed near KRG Capital Erbil.
Regional impacts in Iran have been significantly weakened since the attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Israeli campaign from the region.
Iran’s key allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah, have tried to support Hamas by launching rockets across the border since October 7th and opening a second front against Israel. Since then, the group has been heavily weakened, losing its once dominant influence in Lebanon, and its fighter planes have been targeted by an almost day Israeli strike, facing internal and western demands for disarming.
Hassan Nasrara, the group’s respected leader, was killed in an Israeli strike last year, and the key supply route in Syria was lost in the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s important ally, President Bashar al-Assad.
“Hezbollah has lost its shaking and they have lost credibility at their base. Of course, Iranians are trying to strengthen some of their proxies to strengthen their negotiation hands, but they have not made much progress,” a local official told CNN.
Still, sources from another region told CNN that Hezbollah could “reorganize over the next few weeks” for fear of escalation from Israel. Hezbollah feels that he is in a “existential situation” due to the loss of Syria and the increasing pressures inside Lebanon.
Attempts to drive away Iran’s Hezbollah have been ongoing for the past year. According to the Syrian Ministry of Interior, the new Syrian government, stubbornly opposed to Iran, seized some cargo of Lebanon-bound weapons.
Last month, Syrian Home Affairs Ministry said in a statement that it had attempted to smuggle anti-tank cornet missiles, the same type that Hezbollah used to target Israeli tanks in southern Lebanon. Syrian police said the weapons were hidden in trucks carrying vegetables to the countryside of Homs, adjacent to Lebanon.
The first local sources to speak to CNN questioned Tehran’s purpose in arming a proxy group that proved ineffective in protecting Iran or that they had achieved the stated mission of “liberating Jerusalem.”
“Why is Hezbollah still armed? What is their arms giving them? It doesn’t give them protection, did it not bring them nearly an inch to Jerusalem? What are these weapons doing except that it causes misery to civilians?” the source said.
The restructuring of groups across Iran’s Middle East is because US President Donald Trump demonstrates his declining interest in negotiations with Tehran.
“They want to negotiate badly. We’re not in a hurry… We’ve bombed hell from various places around them. If they want to negotiate, we’re here,” Trump said Wednesday.
Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, dismissed the idea that the story is imminent and downplayed their importance.
“Now is not time for meetings. Negotiations are tactics… We’ll wait and see if the Supreme Leader thinks it is useful,” Larijani said in a television statement Friday.
The sixth round of negotiations was scheduled for June 15th, but the Israeli surprise attack disrupted plans the day before.
Experts say restructuring of local armed groups and introducing destructive capabilities could serve as leverage for Iran, as it appears to negotiate from its strength status despite recent losses.
“In theory, they’ll strengthen their hands to show that they’re just rolling and not subordinate. They want to look rebellious, but the US isn’t just bumping into them,” Knights said.