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With Arms for Yemen Rebels, Iran Seeks Wider Mideast Role
(New York Times) Eric Schmitt and Robert F. Worth - In the past several months, Iran appears to have increased its political outreach and arms shipments to rebels and other political figures in Yemen as part of what American military and intelligence officials say is a widening Iranian effort to extend its influence across the greater Middle East. Iranian smugglers backed by the Quds Force, the international operations unit within Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, are using small boats to ship AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and other arms to the rebels. Using intercepted cellphone conversations between the smugglers and Quds Force operatives provided by the Americans, the Yemeni and Indian coastal authorities have seized some shipments. Militants linked to al-Qaeda continue to battle the Yemeni military in the south, and much of the north is under the control of the Houthi rebels, based just across the border from Saudi Arabia. The Houthi practice a quasi-Shiite form of Islam that makes them natural Iranian allies. "Iran is hoping to use Yemen as a pressure point against Saudi Arabia and all the countries in the Arab Gulf," said Yahya al-Jifri, a leader of Al Rabita, one of Yemen's independent political parties.