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“The fight against Iranian aggression is the world’s fight. The United States is acting today in the spirit of transparency and international cooperation that is necessary to defeat this threat,” she said yesterday, standing in front of a charred ballistic missile the size of a car during a press conference at Joint Base Anacostia Bolling here.
“In this warehouse is concrete evidence of illegal Iranian weapons proliferation, gathered from direct military attacks on our partners in the region,” she added. Haley held the news conference to what she said “unveil clear evidence” of Iran’s violations of UN Security Council resolutions and highlight recent findings communicated in the UN Secretary-General’s Resolution 2231 Implementation Report.
“Behind me is an example of one of these attacks. These are the recovered pieces of a missile fired by Houthi militants from Yemen into Saudi Arabia. The missile’s intended target was the civilian airport in Riyadh, through which tens of thousands of passengers travel each day. I repeat: This missile was used to attack an international civilian airport in a G-20 country,” she told reporters.
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The Iranian Qiam missile is the only known short-range ballistic missile in the world that lacks such stabiliser fins and includes nine valves that you will see running along the length of the missile. “Those valves are essentially Iranian missile fingerprints,” Haley said.
The highest-ranking Indian-American in the Trump administration said the US welcomes UN Secretary-General’s Resolution 2231 Implementation Report, as should every nation concerned about Iranian expansion.
Most telling, the report makes a convincing case that Iran is illegally providing the Houthi militants in Yemen with dangerous weapons, she said. The report provides devastating evidence of missiles, conventional arms and explosive boats of Iranian origin used by the rebels in Yemen – all of which violate UN resolutions, she added.
The US and its partners went to great lengths to support the UN investigations into Iranian violations by declassifying evidence so that the world could better be informed of the extent of Iran’s “malign activities”, the diplomat said.
Haley told reporters that the warehouse also had material from an anti-tank guided missile which have a range of over two miles and can destroy tanks and even buildings. “You will see material from an unmanned aerial vehicle, also known as a kamikaze drone, that can take out radar sites.
You will see material from a SHARK-33 explosive boat. These are boats with a warhead inside them that explodes on impact. They can blow six feet wide holes in the hulls of ships,” she said. “All of these weapons include parts made in Iran, some by Iran’s government-run defence industry. All are proof that Iran is defying the international community. And not just one time. This evidence demonstrates a pattern of behaviour in which Iran sows conflict and extremism in direct violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” she said.
At the UN headquarters in New York, the British Ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft said they are extremely concerned about Iran’s role in this region. “We have seen those reports, we are following up very carefully with the United Nations. It is important that the Security Council does our job, which is to assess the reports about Iran’s behaviour and then takes appropriate action,” he told reporters in response to a question.
Senator Marco Rubio commended the administration for declassifying information and materials related to Iran’s “malign” activities. “As the United States weighs the future of the flawed Iran nuclear deal, the US and our allies must do more to stop the Iranian terror-sponsoring regime’s growing support for Houthi rebels in Yemen and other militant groups in the Middle East,” he said.