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Iran’s regional expansion, its nuclear politics and conflict with the west and GCC allies are all prominent features of regional geopolitics, but has the pressure its behaviours have attracted had any impact on the Islamic Republic’s military projection into its near abroad? GSN’s analysis of recent activity – and especially naval deployments – suggests Iran has suffered setbacks but the build-up continues.

The latest report by the Panel of Experts on Yemen to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), released in late January, has highlighted how all parties to the conflict are guilty of economic profiteering which, alongside the fighting and human rights violations, is exacerbating the country’s dire situation. The UN Panel offered more details on the strength of the Houthi-Iran relationship, as well as corruption within the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and violations of UNSC resolutions by the Southern Transition Council (STC).

The United States is pressing ahead with plans to expand its facilities at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, at Azraq in the eastern desert of Jordan. The budget for the expansion was first approved in 2018 and construction work is being overseen by the US Corps of Engineers.

The new coalition government has had a torrid opening month marked by internal rifts and deadly attacks by opponents. The US designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organisation risks further suffering in the Yazidi movement’s area of control.

As the region enters another period of rising tensions, the capabilities of the Royal Saudi Strategic Rocket Force (RSSRF) may become a bigger feature of strategic calculations. The secretive service’s ballistic missile capability has been maintained as a strategic deterrent for decades. Its potential upgrades and deployments will be closely watched as the RSSRF looks to diversify from its core Chinese-built capability to counter a potential Iranian threat.

The assassination of Dr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear weapons scientist, on 27 November has thrown the Iranian establishment into turmoil. Although Fakhrizadeh had a security team with him and had previously been identified by Israel – notably by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu personally – as a target, he was attacked in a populated area and his attackers seem to have disappeared without trace. According to a former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) officer, he was the seventh Iranian nuclear scientist to be assassinated.

A team from Delaware-registered private security company Spear Operations Group has been active in southern Yemen, BuzzFeed News said in a detailed report published on 16 October. Those interviewed included former United States special forces personnel and other nationals with similar military backgrounds, some of whom were enlisted prior to their deployment to Yemen into the Presidential Guard, an arm of the UAE Armed Forces.

Saudi Arabia is preparing for the transition from President Donald Trump to his successor by laying the groundwork for a withdrawal from Yemen and dealing with outstanding human rights issues, while Netanyahu’s visit suggests Riyadh is keeping its options open on a future deal with Israel.

The UAE has been accused of deploying drones in the conflict that has broken out in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.

Transport slump: Delegates at the Arab Air Carriers’ Organisation (AACO) virtual annual general meeting on 3 November were told it could take between four and seven years for air travel in the region to return to 2019 levels. Passenger traffic is forecast to decline more than 70% this year.

The UAE appears to be on a mission to reshape diplomatic realties around the region, following up its normalisation deal with Israel with a number of potentially strategic deals, but also taking initiatives, such as offering public support to Morocco for its occupation of the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which will not go down well in Algeria.

Iran took umbrage to UAE foreign affairs and international co-operation minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan’s customary reference to disputed islands in the Gulf at the annual United Nations General Assembly on 29 September. Tehran warned the UAE that to raise the issue risked jeopardising the improvement in bilateral relations, which followed a resumption of routine talks on coastguard issues.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government is facing challenges on two main fronts, trying to avert a siege by Houthi forces on Marib while trying to form a new government in the face of a stalemate with the Southern Transition Council (STC).

Tehran is casting a wary eye to its north-west borders, where Armenia and Azerbaijan have resumed fighting over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but controlled by the Armenia-linked Republic of Artsakh.

Saudi authorities announced in late September that they had arrested ten members of a terrorist cell, claiming three of them had received explosives training from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran between October and December 2017.