A senior U.S. defense official says the U.S. knows that Iran is trying to supply Houthi rebels in Yemen with surface-to-air missiles, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest concerns for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is the possibility that the Iranian regime might try to send surface-to-air missiles into Yemen so that Houthi fighters could challenge the operation Decisive Storm that began on March 13 to counter occupation of Yemen by forces funded and armed by the regime in Tehran.<\/p>\n
Since the Red Sea search, the U.S. military has stepped up its surveillance in the region so it can keep a closer eye on what Iran and the Houthis are doing to turn the tide in their favor, the U.S. officials said.<\/p>\n
So far, the military officials said, the coordinated military operations appear to have deterred the Iranian regime from taking major risks to aid the Houthis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey [the Iranian regime] don\u2019t have an easy route in from the air. They don\u2019t have an easy route in from the sea,\u201d one senior U.S. military official said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s lots of intelligence focused on what they\u2019re doing\u2014from loading to potential delivery,\u201d the Journal quoted the official.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t get the sense that the Iranian level of commitment at this point is of such a magnitude that they are going to take a big risk of being exposed any more than they already are,\u201d one military official said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they can do it, and it\u2019s not going to cost them a whole lot, I think they\u2019ll do it. But the Houthis are not some ally that they are going to go to the mat for.\u201d<\/p>\n
A quarter of a century ago the Iranian regime planned to take advantage of Yemen\u2019s religious fabric to form a mercenary group in that country to be used as a spring board for its aggression against Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula.<\/p>\n
The clerical regime decided that the al-Houthi Tribe is a suitable candidate to organize such a venture and thus started to employ them since that time.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Saudi Ambassador to U.S., al-Jubeir, told U.S. and Arab reporters in a gathering in Washington: \u201cIran provides financial support for the Houthis and helps them in building weapon factories and providing them with weapons. In addition that there are Iranians working alongside the Houthis,\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A senior U.S. defense official says the U.S. knows that Iran is trying to supply Houthi rebels in Yemen with surface-to-air missiles, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. One […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[175],"class_list":{"0":"post-18202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-terrorism-a-fundamentalism","7":"tag-updated"},"yoast_head":"\n