By Faisal Abu Bakr | 2024-08-13

ADEN -- Iranian proxies in Yemen and Iraq have been working together to manufacture and operate drones, new evidence shows, as the Iranian regime seeks to implement its agenda remotely while concealing its hand, sources said.

The recently exposed cooperation between Iraqi militia Kataib Hizbullah and the Houthis in Yemen signals a shift towards the regime's so-called "unity of arenas" policy and bodes ill for the region, they said.

"Iran wanted to plunge the region into a spiral of violence through these militias, by supplying them with drones and manufacturing technology and arming them with missiles," political analyst Fares al-Beel told Al-Fassel.

Proxy militias "preoccupy and ignite the region, while Iran stays away from direct conflict," he said.

In a new sign of collaboration among Iran-aligned militias, a high-level Houthi drone expert from Yemen was killed July 30 at a drone manufacturing, development and storage facility in Iraq as militants prepared an attack on US forces.

Hussein Abdullah Mastour al-Shaabal (aka "Abu Jihad") was killed in a US air strike on the facility near Jurf al-Sakhar, a closed-access military base south of Baghdad operated by Kataib Hizbullah and other Iranian proxies.

A serious threat

"The presence of a Houthi officer in Iraq is a clear indication that Iran has begun to move to another square, which is the 'unity of arenas,' meaning that its affiliates in the region will not fight alone but collectively," al-Beel said.

The exposure of top Houthi operatives working alongside Iran's proxies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon confirms the seriousness of the Iranian threat, he added.

Al-Beel said the Iranian regime has deployed drones outside the official military bases of other countries "in a move that sows aggression and destruction."

This indicates that Iran seeks "evil for all countries in the region, as it did with its establishment of militias that exist and operate outside" the control of various regional governments, he said.

Iran supplies these militias with drones, missiles and military equipment.

The death of a Houthi operative in an area controlled by Kataib Hizbullah "sheds light on the dubious relationship between the two terrorist entities," said Yemeni Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism Muammar al-Eryani.

"Recent events in the region clearly reveal the level of involvement of Iran and its affiliates, most notably the Houthis, in a plan to spread chaos and terrorism and destabilize security and stability," he said.

"The Houthis are merely a front for managing the Iranian expansionist project, which the Yemeni government had warned about early on," he added.