US: Iran using proxies to conceal military ops
Official says Washington will continue to expose Iranian surrogate attacks
Dubai - Iran is using disinformation and its proxies in the region to conceal its military operations, US Special Representative on Iran Brian Hook said during a telephonic press conference. Answering a question from Gulf News, Hook said Iran often conducts false flags operations, and hides behind proxies. “People hear about an Al Houthi attack but the Iranian training that enabled Al Houthis to conduct such an attack is not mentioned. We want to expose the [Iranian] regime. An Al Houthi attack, a Hezbollah attack is fiction. We call it Iranian surrogate attacks. We hold the Iranian government responsible,” Hook said.
The warehouse was full of [remnants] of Iranian weapons. They showed the level to which Iran has armed Al Houthi militia.
Hook was speaking by telephone from Oman, where he is touring Gulf countries before heading to Paris. When he was in Saudi Arabia, Hook met Defence Minister Khalid Bin Salman and travelled to the Prince Salman airbase where he was shown remnants of the missiles Al Houthis fired at targets in Saudi Arabia. “The warehouse was full of [remnants] of Iranian weapons. They showed the level to which Iran has armed Al Houthi militia,” Hook said. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly accused Iran of supplying sophisticated weapons to Al Houthis, who have launched cross-border attacks on facilities inside the kingdom.
Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al Jubeir has strongly criticised Iran for its policies in the region. “You can not attack ships in the Gulf, you can not attack pipelines, you can not provide ballistic missiles to terrorist groups like Al Houthis (in Yemen) to use against Saudi Arabia,” he said.