Congress Intensifies Efforts against Iran's UAV Program

Senate Foreign Relations Committee put forward a bill imposing sanctions on Iran's UAV program (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Senate Foreign Relations Committee put forward a bill imposing sanctions on Iran's UAV program (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Congress Intensifies Efforts against Iran's UAV Program

Senate Foreign Relations Committee put forward a bill imposing sanctions on Iran's UAV program (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Senate Foreign Relations Committee put forward a bill imposing sanctions on Iran's UAV program (Asharq Al-Awsat)

US lawmakers have stepped up their efforts to confront the threat of the Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program after the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill imposing sanctions on it.

On Thursday, senators proposed a similar plan at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Committee Ranking Member, Jim Risch, and Chairman Bob Menendez introduced on December 16 bipartisan legislation to prevent Iran and any terrorist or militia groups aligned with Iran from acquiring lethal drones.

They indicated that the US government is intensifying its efforts to stop Tehran's flourishing lethal UAV program.

The Stop Iranian Drones Act of 2021 seeks to amend the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) to include any action that seeks to advance Iran's UAV program, as defined by the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, as sanctionable under US law.

Menendez warned that Iran's increasing reliance on unmanned aerial vehicles to attack US personnel and assets across the Middle East and shipping vessels, commercial facilities, and regional partners are a serious and growing menace to regional stability.

He cautioned that Iran's reckless export of this kind of technology to proxies and terrorist actors across the region represents a significant threat to human lives.

"We must do more to hold Iran accountable for its destabilizing behavior as we continue to confront the threat of its nuclear program."

"I'm pleased to join our colleagues in the House of Representatives in this effort to add UAVs to existing laws that counter conventional threats from Iran, bringing it in line with the UN Register of Conventional Arms."

Risch asserted that the efforts must do more to halt Iran's regional terrorism.

"Iran's armed drone capability presents a growing threat to the Middle East. This legislation rightly imposes costs on the Iranian drone program and its supporters."

CAATSA, the US law passed by Congress in 2017, includes penalties for anyone who supplies, sells, or transfers combat drones to or from Iran, which can be used in attacks against the United States or its allies.



Iran Executes a Man Convicted of Spying for the Mossad

People walk along a wall covered in mural paintings and a building in the distance bearing an anti-Israel billboard that reads 'Once again, a Pharaoh will drown' at Palestine Square in Tehran on April 26, 2025. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
People walk along a wall covered in mural paintings and a building in the distance bearing an anti-Israel billboard that reads 'Once again, a Pharaoh will drown' at Palestine Square in Tehran on April 26, 2025. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
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Iran Executes a Man Convicted of Spying for the Mossad

People walk along a wall covered in mural paintings and a building in the distance bearing an anti-Israel billboard that reads 'Once again, a Pharaoh will drown' at Palestine Square in Tehran on April 26, 2025. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
People walk along a wall covered in mural paintings and a building in the distance bearing an anti-Israel billboard that reads 'Once again, a Pharaoh will drown' at Palestine Square in Tehran on April 26, 2025. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran executed Wednesday a man it said worked for Israel's foreign intelligence agency and played a role in the 2022 killing of a Revolutionary Guard colonel in Tehran, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The report identified the man as Mohsen Langarneshin and said he was hanged. It called him a “senior spy” for the Mossad, who provided “technical support” in the assassination of Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, shot five times by gunmen on a motorbike outside his home in Tehran, The Associated Press reported.
The agency said the Mossad recruited Langarneshin in 2020 and that he met with Israeli intelligence officers in Georgia and Nepal.
Langarneshin reportedly rented safe houses for operatives in several Iranian cities, including Isfahan, when, in January 2023, bomb-carrying drones targeted what Iran described as a military workshop. Iran has accused Israel of being behind the attack.
The report said Langarneshin confessed in Iran's Revolutionary court, which usually provides a court-appointed lawyer and doesn't allow media access.
At the time of his assassination, local media identified Khodaei only as a “defender of the shrine,” a reference to Iranians who fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq within the Guard’s Quds force that oversees foreign operations.