As the threat of renewed war grows, Washington is expanding efforts to choke Tehran’s military supply networks, including through Task Force Iron Gate – a unit targeting land routes and the Caspian Sea. With it, the US military is trying to prevent Iran from using ground routes to transport advanced weapons and other materials, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Saturday. The same day, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced ambitious plans for underground complexes capable of sustaining missile and drone production under bombardment.
That announcement came amid reports of ongoing construction near Iranian missile bases, based on satellite imagery and previous claims by Tehran that US strikes failed to destroy its underground facilities. Here’s what we know about the US task force: Task Force Iron Gate will aim to find out where “weapons systems are coming in, how they could potentially be cut off” and how “Iran is transporting its energy”, Michael Mulroy, a former US deputy assistant defence secretary for the Middle East, told Al Jazeera. It expands on the US blockade of Iranian ports to cover Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea and will reportedly be run by 20 civilian and military personnel.
Iran shares borders with seven countries – Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan Turkiye and Turkmenistan. Based in Tampa, Florida, the unit will coordinate with other US government agencies “on preventing the movement of advanced weapons systems, dual-use technologies, sanctioned materials and illegal revenue streams across Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea”, CENTCOM said. Task Force Iron Gate will reinforce “the success of our ironclad blockade against Iran at sea”, CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper said.
If US President Donald Trump ramps up the war, there will likely be attacks on this “series of targets”, said Mulroy. Washington previously “claimed that Iran will suffer an economic collapse within two weeks, but we witnessed that this did not happen”, he added. While CENTCOM’s announcement did not explicitly identify Iran’s weapons trade with Russia, analysts say the unit could be seen as an attempt to disrupt supply networks that include Russian connections.
US media have reported that Russia has sent drone components and explosives to Iran via the Caspian Sea. There are also claims that Russian technology could be helping Iran develop advanced supersonic cruise missiles. Mahjoob Zweiri, a professor of contemporary history and politics at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera that reports of military equipment imported via Russia are a “real concern” for the United States.
The task force therefore could “cause a confrontation with Russia”, he said. Rami Khouri, a public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut and a non-resident senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, said of the new unit: “The US really doesn’t quite know what to do about Iran as we’ve seen, and it’s doing things off the cuff” – a strategy that has led to little success. Khouri pointed to Iran’s history as a trading nation for thousands of years as evidence that the US mission is near impossible.
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