Revolutionary Guards Navy Conducts Joint Military Exercises with Russian Navy.
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s state television says two Russian warships have left a northern Iranian port after the two countries held a joint, three-day naval exercise in the Caspian Sea.
Thursday’s report on [Press] TV’s website quoted Iranian Adm. Afshin Rezaei Haddad, who is Iran’s navy commander in the Caspian Sea, as saying that the Russian vessels departed from the northern Iranian port of Anzali on Wednesday.
It was the first visit in decades by a Russian fleet of War Ships to an Iranian port in the Caspian Sea.
Iran’s navy has increased its bilateral relations with various countries, including China and Pakistan in recent years, the American Associated Press news agency has reported. Last year, a Russian naval group docked in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on the way home from a Pacific Ocean voyage.
A fleet of Iranian war ships visited Tanzania in June this year. An agreement was reported reached during the visit for the Iranian navy to train Tanzanian navy officers. The revelations were made by a news agency associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the FARS News Agency.
Iranian war ship docks at the Dar es Salaam Port
The Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Republic of Tanzania, H.E. Mehdi Agha Jafari reportedly told the news agency Tehran will train Tanzanian navy officers.
“Aqa Jafari’s remarks came after the Navy’s 30th Flotilla of warships dispatched to the high seas left Dar As-Salaam port after berthing in the Tanzanian coast. The Flotilla is comprised of Alvand destroyer and Bushehr logistics-combat vessel,” the news agency has reported.
The envoy expressed pleasure in the positive trend of the expansion of the relations between Iran and Tanzania, and said the two countries’ military officials also agreed that Iran’s operational and training warships make regular visits to Tanzania.
Iran’s 30th Fleet of the Iranian Navy docked at the Dar es Salaam Port this mid-June, 2014. The flotilla, comprised of the Alvand frigate and Bushehr light replenishment ship. The ships arrived at the port on Thursday, June 12, 2014 after accomplishing missions in the Gulf of Aden, Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, the Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told the Iranian State TV station, PRESS TV.
IRAN SLOWLY TAKES OVER YEMEN
In the mean time, while the world is focusing attention on the battles between Kurdish forces and the Islamic State in Kobani–the Syrian city on the border between Turkey and Syria– Iran is slowly completing an impressive takeover of the country of Yemen.
On Tuesday, 14th ocotber, 2014, Houthi separatists took control of the strategic Yemeni port city of Hodeida, west of the capital, Sana’a, the Times of Israel has reported. They captured the airport to the south of the city on the same day. This came after the 21st September, 2014 Houthi take-over of Sana’a itself.
The Houthi, Zaidi Shi’a (one of Shi’a Muslim sects), have enjoyed the close support in recent years of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and its al-Quds Brigades, responsible for foreign theaters. Yemen, due to its strategic location, commands what for Israel is a strategic waterway — the exit from the Rea Sea to the Indian Ocean, also known as Bab al-Mandab.
The presence of Revolutionary Guards forces on such a critical shipping lane for the Israeli economy, facilitating access not only to the Indian Ocean but also to targets like Iran itself, could present significant problems for Israeli ships passing through, the Times or Israel has reported.
At the beginning of the 1970s, Palestinian terror groups attacked Israeli ships that passed through Bab al-Mandab. It is possible that Iranians will try to use the same tactics using the Houthis.
In November 2011, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh quit after 33 years. He was one of the longest-serving leaders in the Middle East, similar to Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. They were the same age, and the lynch that killed Qaddafi in 2011 was, it seems, one of the factors that led to Saleh stepping down on his own accord. In his place, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi was appointed president.
But for the Houthi, this personal change was not enough. They wanted a bigger slice of the government pie, and, likely with Iranian encouragement, they sought to take over the country, as they are still attempting to do now.
In recent months, the Houthi have recorded significant military achievements, the most important being the capture of Sana’a. They managed to take over government offices and other strategic facilities, and then agreed to stop fighting — but only if a new government made up of technocrats was appointed.
President Hadi, with UN mediation, agreed. But when he tried to appoint one of his associates, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, as prime minister, he was met with a strident refusal on the part of the Houthi.
Meanwhile, the Sunni extremists operating throughout Yemen, especially al-Qaeda, did not look favorably upon this assertion of power by the Zaidi Shi’ites, who make up about 30% of the country’s population. Last Thursday, 9th October, 2014, during a Houthi demonstration against the appointment of bin Mubarak, a suicide bomber detonated himself in the crowd marching in Sana’a, killing 47.
This development caused President Hadi to withdraw from his plan to appoint bin Mubarak, and only on Monday did all the parties agree to the appointment of the former Yemeni ambassador to the UN, Khaled Baha, as the new prime minister.
