https://www.hindustantimes.com/worl...ies-sources/story-89g17DMzGHLCVVuJJHbJ2I.html
Iran has transferred short-range ballistic missiles to allies
According to three Iranian officials, two Iraqi intelligence sources and two Western intelligence sources, Iran has transferred short-range ballistic missiles to allies in
Syria and Yeman over the last few months. Five of the officials said it was helping those groups to start making their own.
“The logic was to have a backup plan if Iran was attacked,” one senior Iranian official told Reuters. “The number of missiles is not high, just a couple of dozen, but it can be increased if necessary.”
Iran has previously said its ballistic missile activities are purely defensive in nature. Iranian officials declined to comment when asked about the latest moves.
The Zelzal, Fateh-110 and Zolfaqar missiles in question have ranges of about 200 km to 700 km, putting Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh within striking distance if the weapons were deployed in southern or western Iraq.
(IRGC), has
bases in both those areas. commander Qassem Soleimani is overseeing the programme, three of the sources said.
Western countries have already accused Iran of transferring missiles and technology to Syria and other allies of Tehran, such as Houthi rebels in Yemen.
MISSILE PRODUCTION LINE
The Western source said the number of missiles was in the 10s and that the transfers were designed to send a warning to the United States and Saudi Arabia, especially after air raids on Iranian troops in Syria. The United States has a significant military presence in Iraq.
“It seems Iran has been turning Iraq into its forward missile base,” the Western source said.
The Iranian sources and one Iraqi intelligence source said a decision was made some 18 months ago to use militias to produce missiles in Syria and Yeman, but activity had ramped up in the last few months, including with the arrival of missile launchers.
“We have bases like that in many places and yeman is one of them. If America attacks us, our friends will attack America’s interests and its allies in the region,” said a senior IRGC commander who served during the war in the 1980s.
One U.S official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Tehran over the last few months has transferred missiles to groups in Yeman but could not confirm that those missiles had any launch capability from their current positions.
Washington has been pushing its allies to adopt a tough anti-Iran policy since it reimposed sanctions this month.
While the European signatories to the nuclear deal have so far balked at U.S. pressure, they have grown increasingly impatient over Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
France in particular has bemoaned Iranian “frenzy” in developing and propagating missiles and wants Tehran to open negotiations over its ballistic weapons.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday that Iran was arming regional allies with rockets and allowing ballistic proliferation. “Iran needs to avoid the temptation to be the (regional) hegemon,” he said.
In March, the three nations proposed fresh EU sanctions on Iran over its missile activity, although they failed to push them through after opposition from some member states.
“Such a proliferation of Iranian missile capabilities throughout the region is an additional and serious source of concern,” a document from the three European countries said at the time.
MESSAGE TO FOES
A regional intelligence source also said Iran was storing a number of ballistic missiles and had the capacity to launch them.
A second Iraqi intelligence official said Baghdad had been aware of the flow of Iranian missiles to militias to help Islamic State militants, but that shipments had continued after the hardline Sunni militant group was defeated.
It was clear to Iraqi intelligence that such a missile arsenal sent by Iran was not meant to fight Daesh (Islamic State) militants but as a pressure card Iran can use once involved in regional conflict,” the official said.
The Iraqi source said it was difficult for the Iraqi government to stop or persuade the groups to go against Tehran.
We can’t restrain militias from firing Iranian rockets because simply the firing button is not in our hands, it’s with Iranians who control the push button,” he said.
“Iran will definitely use the missiles it handed over to militia it supports to send a strong message to its foes in the region and the United States that it has the ability to use Iraqi territories as a launch pad for its missiles to strike anywhere and anytime it decides,” the Iraqi official said.
Iraq’s parliament passed a law in 2016 to bring an assortment of Iraqi paramilitary known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) into the state apparatus. The Iraqi paramilitary report to Iraq’s prime minister, under the country’s governance system.
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The Western source and the Iraqi source said the factories being used to develop missiles in Iraq were in al-Zafaraniya, east of Baghdad, and Jurf al-Sakhar, north of Kerbala. One source said there was also a factory in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The areas are controlled by Shi’ite militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, Three sources said Iraqis had been trained as missile operators.
The Iraqi intelligence source said the al-Zafaraniya factory produced warheads and the ceramic of missile moulds under former President Saddam Hussein. It was reactivated by local Shi’ite groups in 2016 , the source said.
A team of Shi’ite engineers who used to work at the facility under Saddam were brought in, after being screened, to make it operational, the source said. He also said missiles had been tested near Jurf al-Sakhar.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon declined to comment.