Has Russia helped Iran target CIA sites in the Gulf?
Reports of Iran targeting sites belonging to the US's CIA first emerged in the early days of the US and Israel’s war with Iran. When
Reports of Iran targeting sites belonging to the US's CIA first emerged in the early days of the US and Israel’s war with Iran. When US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Russian Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov on Thursday in Manila, on the margins of a summit of Southeast Asian nations, Moscow’s war on Ukraine was officially the top agenda item. But the meeting between Rubio and Lavrov was held under the shadow of fresh reports suggesting that Russia might be playing a more active role than it has publicly acknowledged in Iran’s attacks on United States military sites in the Middle East. Reports of Iran targeting sites belonging to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) first emerged in the early days of the US and Israel’s war on Iran. Three days into the war, on March 3, The Washington Post reported that a CIA station in the US embassy in Riyadh had been targeted, according to two people familiar with the matter. On March 6, CNN reported, citing US intelligence sources, that Moscow had been helping Tehran locate US personnel and aircraft in the Gulf. Now, more recently, the Reuters news agency on Wednesday reported that Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities, specifically on the embassy in Saudi Arabia, had prompted US intelligence to investigate possible Russian involvement, suggesting that the strikes’ effectiveness and precision could suggest possible evidence of support.
Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at the Centre of International Research at Sciences Po university in Paris, explained that Russian involvement in Iran’s targeting was a “realistic” theory. “This was kind of what was suspected because a lot of the attacks that Iran did were far more advanced than what they’ve done before,” Grajewski told Al Jazeera. “Iran doesn’t have great space-based capability, unlike Russia,” she said. “Compared to Russia, Iran doesn’t have enough military-grade satellites for basic stuff… it seems likely that they struck some of the deal with the Russians.” However, she explained that Iran has its own human intelligence-gathering networks that are “often overlooked” when it comes to the targets it selects in the region. Russian support for Iran Amid wars and sanctions, Moscow and Tehran have deepened their military relations. While many analysts have argued that relations between the two countries are less of an alliance and more of a marriage of convenience against the West, Grajewski disagrees. “They both have kind of viewed themselves as actors that are facing kind of similar threats on the global stage, and their cooperation has really intensified since the war in Ukraine, and even more so recently,” she said. “They’re much more dependent on each other.” The February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine drew the two sides closer militarily after Tehran provided Moscow with critical weapons, most notably the Shahed drone and the Fateh-110 ballistic missile, to aid in its war efforts.
The BriefWire