Iran proxies continue to attack US forces
Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin has the latest on the Middle East conflict on 'Special Report.'
Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said Iran was arming and empowering Hamas and other terror groups in the region, but claimed the Iran-backed groups make their own decisions.
"NBC Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt asked Iravani about how far Iran's support for terror groups go, and asked if they were arming them.
"In the case of Palestine, we’re sending arms, we’re training them and empowering them. But with the other parts of the region, the resistance parts in the region, we have some coordination, cooperation, consultation, and maybe some financing also."
He claimed that the groups make their own decisions and said they took no part in Hamas' terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7.
Iran Ambassador to the U.N. Amir Saeid Iravani sits down with NBC's Lester Holt. (Screenshot/NBC)
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"We have not participated in this decision. It was the Palestinian decision and the Palestinian implementation. We have ... no role in this case," he told NBC.
He told Holt that Iran was not arming Houthi groups in Yemen and did not have control over the groups facilitating attacks against the U.S. and Israel.
U.S. and coalition forces launched more than two dozen strikes on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, the Department of Defense said Saturday.
"These strikes are intended to further disrupt and degrade the capabilities of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia to conduct their reckless and destabilizing attacks against U.S. and international vessels lawfully transiting the Red Sea," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
Iran's United Nations Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani addresses the U.N. General Assembly at U.N. headquarters on Feb. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
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Holt asked if Iran was supplying the Houthis with sophisticated weapons used against the attacks on commercial shipping. He said Houthis have their own weapons.
"We are not directing them. We are not commanding them. We have a common consultation with each other," Iravani said.
The U.S. Navy's top Mideast commander told The Associated Press in January that Iran is "very directly involved" in ship attacks that Yemen's Houthi rebels have carried out during Israel's war against Hamas.
Iranian missiles exhibited in a park on January 20, 2024 in Tehran, Iran. Iran has been a key player in several overlapping regional conflicts, with its recent airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan, and its support of Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi movement in Yemen. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images) (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
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The Navy commander acknowledged the threat from Iran's proxies and that its distribution of weapons extended from the Red Sea out to the far reaches of the Indian Ocean. The U.S. has blamed Iran for recent drone attacks on shipping, and a U.S.-owned cargo vessel came under attack from the Houthis in the Gulf of Aden last week.
So far, Iran has not directly gotten involved in fighting either Israel or the U.S. since the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7. However, Cooper maintained Iran had been directly fueling the Houthi attacks on shipping.
"What I’ll say is Iran is clearly funding, they’re resourcing, they are supplying and they’re providing training," Cooper said. "They’re obviously very directly involved. There’s no secret there."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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