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From the Steppes of Donbas to the Deserts of Syria

Radwan Awad — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 13:07:15 +0000

After more than 13 years of civil war, the Assad regime collapsed in a matter of weeks in December 2024. With few foreseeing the swiftness of the regime’s demise, Russian interests in the region were dealt a resounding blow, following nearly a decade of committed involvement. As arguably the Russian ally which enjoyed the most military backing, the old Syria under Assad proved to be somewhat of a testing ground for Russian military expertise – perhaps the most important element of its relations with friendly states in the ‘global south’.

Of particular interest are the efforts Russia was making to enhance the capabilities of Assad’s army in the 12 months before the regime’s collapse. Beginning in late 2023, regime propaganda websites and social media accounts began publishing photos and videos of Russian instructors training Syrian soldiers in the use of first-person view (FPV) drones – which could be considered the biggest battlefield innovation of the past decade, brought to light by the invasion of Ukraine.

This report delves into the implications of these training programs, shedding light on how Russia is leveraging the military experience it is gaining in its war on Ukraine as a means to further its influence abroad.

Introduction

Following its full-scale intervention in Syria in 2015, Russia was arguably the most steadfast and decisive ally of the Assad regime. Backed by overwhelming Russian airpower, the Syrian state managed to fairly quickly claw back territory throughout the country. By the end of the following year, the Syrian state had full control over the city of Aleppo, rebel enclaves scattered throughout the country fell one by one, and antiregime groups were largely confined to Idlib Province until their breakout in winter 2024. All of the regime’s gains were accomplished at an enormous cost to civilians. Throughout the Russian intervention, a persistent criticism by international media, humanitarian organizations and Syrian civil society was that the Russian state was effectively aiding and abetting—if not outright committing—the Assad regime’s war crimes. Indiscriminate, or even positively terroristic, bombing runs by Syrian and Russian warplanes played a decisive role in the string of defeats suffered by Syrian revolutionaries between 2015 and 2019, which demoralized constituent populations and overwhelmed already stretched opposition resources. The rebels had no response to this tactic.

In the last 12 months of its involvement in Syria, the Russian state was engaged in further enhancing the capabilities of the Assad regime by imparting lessons learned by the Russian army in Ukraine. Of particular interest for the purposes of this report is the proliferation of FPV drones in Syria brought by Russian instructors to the bases of the Assad regime’s most trusted units.

One of these, the 25th Special Forces Division—formerly known as the Tiger Forces—has been accused of some of the worst atrocities of the war, including massacres of protesters in the early days of the conflict.

FPV stands for ‘first-person view’, a technology once used primarily for drone racing, aerial photography, and videography, which has now found its way to battlefields in Ukraine, Syria, Sudan and beyond. The term ‘FPV’ refers to the method by which the drone pilot experiences the flight of the drone through a camera installed on it, which transmits a live video feed to a headset, monitor, or mobile device. This allows the pilot to see from the drone’s perspective at a relatively safe distance.

FPV drones represent a rapidly advancing technology that offers significant potential due to their affordability and lethality. They enable precise and targeted operations, making them a formidable tool for executing focused attacks on specific individuals or objectives.

The war in Ukraine precipitated an explosion in the development of FPV drone technology. First pioneered by Ukrainian army units several months into the war, the Russians quickly adapted and began establishing their own production lines. By December 2023, Ukrainian experts warned that Russia was producing six times as many of these drones as Ukraine – up to 300,000 monthly, with the capability to further scale up operations.These figures speak volumes about the efficacy of these weapons. Footage exists of fairly modern tanks being completely obliterated by wellplaced FPV hits. Lighter vehicles are yet more vulnerable. Even using an FPV drone to kill a single enemy soldier represents a more cost-effective use of munitions than conventional methods. The drones themselves are small, highly agile and fast, making them nearly impossible to shoot down with regular bullets. As such, they roam the battlefields of Ukraine with near impunity, coming to represent arguably the most feared weapon of the war.

Of particular concern is the mixture of accessibility and effectiveness provided by FPV drones, putting them within comfortable reach of terrorist organizations, individual assailants, and sanctioned regimes. The technology behind them is quite straightforward and can be assembled by hand in a matter of hours at a low cost. “It’s easy to legally obtain FPV drones for less than 750 euros each and convert them into kamikaze drones,” explains Julian Ropcke, a German military and security analyst speaking to Mohammed Bassiki. “All you need in addition is an RPG-7 warhead or any other type of explosive tied to the drone.”

With these considerations in mind, there were reasonable misgivings about the implications of this technology finding its way into the hands of the Assad regime. According to Ropcke, speaking in mid-2024, “the drones are being used as a terror weapon by the regime rather than strategically to defeat rebel forces. It seems that the regime is using these as a cheap alternative to artillery or mortars, and the threshold for their use is lower due to their ‘civilian’ and even ‘playful’ nature.”

According to Syrian humanitarian organizations, FPVs were used to target civilians – whether as perverse ‘practice’ for operators, or as a continuation of the Syrian state’s strategy of brutality.

This investigation, based on open-source intelligence (OSINT), analyzes the nature of FPV drone usage in Syria by the fallen Assad regime, the implications this had for the Syrian population, and the nature of Russian influence operations.

FPVs

Quadcopter drones, primarily Chinese- and Russian-designed, have been spotted in use by the Syrian Arab Army. The above pictures are likely to show Russian Gastello FPV quadcopters – reported to be in mass production in Russia since 2023.[1] The fourth image shows a screenshot of the drones being featured on Russian state media..

In the above left picture, the operator appears to be carrying a Chinese Mavic 3 drone. The picture to the right shows a drone with the text “MA3” visible.

Training and Deployment

During its involvement in Syria in from 2015-2024, the Russian military preferred to work with a handful of specific Syrian Arab Army units, selected for their loyalty to the Assad regime and their relative combat efficacy compared to regular units. These often became the first-in-line to receive new Russian-manufactured equipment. A similar trend can be observed in regard to Russian training and supply of FPV drones.

Some trainers wear Serbian flag patches. Serbian mercenaries have also been spotted fighting for the Russian military in Ukraine.

According to our analysis using OSINT techniques, three Syrian Arab Army units underwent training in FPV drones usage: the 5th and 7th mechanized divisions, and the 25th Special Mission Forces Division, the renamed “Tiger Forces”, formerly under the command of the notorious Suheil al-Hasan. Al-Hasan is currently the head of the Syrian special forces. Training is evidently not confined just to the deployment of FPV drones. Russian instructors are seen with electronic warfare equipment, and what appears to be a new Russian-developed anti-drone rifle, the Garpiya. Officers up to the rank of brigadier general are seen undergoing training.

Furthermore, based on analysis of images released by pro-regime Telegram and Twitter/X accounts, training appeared to be happening in at least two locations. One was at the 5th Mechanized Division’s headquarters in Izra, rural Daraa province. The second appeared to be in the town of Kom al-Wasiyah, by the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. This was identified again through OSINT analysis.

Image from pro-regime online account. Claims to be showing veterans of the “special military operation” (in Ukraine) training Syrian Army troops.

In the above image, one catches a glimpse of two signs bearing the Syrian flag. These appear to align with the below images, gleaned from the Kom al-Wasiyah municipality’s official Facebook account.

Further pictures were uploaded on the same account of Russian instructors on rooftops, giving further clues regarding their location.

In fact, the rooftop images appear to be of the village municipality building.

As mentioned earlier, the training also went beyond just the use of FPV drones. Some of the images posted by pro-Assad online accounts (see below) give rare glimpses of what could be a new Russian-made anti-drone rifle, the Garpiya. If this were the case, the Syrian Arab Army could have been among the first in the world to widely field this type of anti-drone weapon, reflecting the growing danger posed by FPV drones and other small remotely controlled weapons.

Garpiya anti-drone rifle.

According to a military source in the Syrian opposition, during 2024, “kamikaze drones are launched by Russian special forces from elevated areas along the frontlines in rural Idlib and Aleppo regions,” with “no observed presence of Syrian regime forces during the launches.” This is corroborated by a post by an official military account of the National Liberation Front, a faction of the Syrian anti-Assad rebels. According to the source, the kamikaze drones were guided by Russian observation drones and penetrated as far as 10 kilometers into what was then-rebel-held territory.

Analysis of non-public military footage of the Syrian opposition forces shows the bulk of pro-Assad FPV launch sites being clustered around the localities of Dana, Saraqib and Jabal al-Zawiya in Idlib Province, as well as Base 46, a fortified position in the Aleppo countryside that was the site of a major battle in 2012. According to Nawar Shaban, a researcher with the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, there is evidence that pro-Assad forces were actively developing the drones, such as by installing larger batteries and thus improving range.

Impact on Civilians and Further Implications

The brief period in which FPV drone technology was in the hands of the brutal Syrian Arab Army unfortunately led to Syrian civilians being terrorized by this new weapon. As we can see from the patterns of attacks described by the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, pro-Assad forces were regularly targeting civilians with FPV drones – whether this was perverse “practice” or part of a broader strategy of terror directed at the civilian population, the effects remained the same. Dozens of civilians were targeted, maimed and killed by these devices, particularly at the start of 2024.

Beyond this, FPV drones gave the Assad regime significant tactical and strategic advantages. According to Dr Glenn Kolomeitz, an international law consultant and analyst and former Australian Army legal officer, these weapons are particularly effective in the hands of a faction with little regard for civilian casualties. “From a weaponeering and targetting perspective, FPV drones give commanders greater options and…greater flexibility and accuracy in the battlespace. This is especially the case when collateral damage does not feature prominently in a commander’s targeting decision making and when collateral damage estimates are not an element of the targeting process, both of which appear to be the case with pro-Assad forces.”

Furthermore, according to Dr Kolomeitz, the advantages stretch beyond the battlefield, thanks to what he calls the “Terminator Effect”. “This is the effect on the morale of opposition troops and in the creation of a state of panic and terror in the civilian population, of lethal machines in the nature of loitering munitions operated from a distance,” Dr Kolomeitz told OSINT for Ukraine.

Recall the common tactical usage by pro-Assad forces of barrel bombs – essentially barrels filled with explosives that would be dropped out of helicopters into densely populated areas, with practically no regard to accuracy. Pro-Assad forces consistently demonstrated their reliance on such terror tactics to subdue the civilian population into submission. FPV drones gave them a new vector with which to pursue this strategy, with even less risk for the operators, particularly as engineers devised ways to increase the drones’ range and lethality.

On an even broader scale, the adoption of FPV drone technology could have also been a major cost-cutting measure for the heavily sanctioned Assad regime. “Without reducing the humanitarian impact of these weapons to a cheap quote, these FPV drones deliver Syrian government forces ‘more bang for their buck’,” explains Dr Kolomeitz. “These drones…are far cheaper to make and operate than conventional indirect fire weapons systems…much of the technology, in terms of availability, is commercial off-the-shelf and multi-use.” This also would have made it significantly easier for the Assad regime to manufacture FPV drones, which they had evidently been doing. Though the worst did not come to pass, even if the international community were to attempt to restrict another similarly rogue state’s ability to access the components needed to manufacture the drones, according to Dr Kolomeitz, “rapid advances in and improvements in the largely civilian and multi-use technology makes identifying and subjecting equipment to sanctions difficult.” That Russia and Iran are both making strides in homegrown manufacturing of FPV drones made it all the easier for rogue states’ to access the critical components for building drones.

Thankfully, the worst-case scenario did not come to pass. Despite several dozens of recorded FPV drone attacks on civilians in the year or so prior to the fall of the Assad regime, the rebel offensive of December 2024 decisively put an end to this threat. Rather ironically, a large part of the success of the rebel offensive was due to their own astute use of FPV drones – likely involving Ukrainian trainers and even operators. Another armed Syrian faction, the Kurdish-dominated SDF, has also recently been using FPV drones in its fight against Turkish-backed militias.

However, the Russian involvement in training FPV pilots in the Syrian army does reflect the growing influence the Russian state is currently exerting, fueled by the experience it has acquired in its invasion of Ukraine. According to Dr Kolomeitz, Syria had become a “laboratory for drones,” allowing Russia to “test the ability of a client state to manufacture low-cost FPV drones locally using commercial technology, and test the ability to get around sanctions regimes.” With Russia and several of its allied states currently operating under sanctioned regimes, this was an invaluable opportunity for the Russian state to acquire realtime experience, both for its own ability to circumvent sanctions, and for its ability to support allied states and exert its influence. In doing so, Dr Kolomeitz says that “Russia has bought a seat at the table of Middle Eastern influence”.

This experience also helped Russia develop its own capabilities. For decades, the Russian military has been gradually evolving from its Soviet roots to develop more contemporary capabilities suited to today’s geopolitical and military climate. A major reflection of this shift is Russia’s focus on developing relatively small-scale expeditionary capabilities – as seen in its 2014 invasion of Ukraine, its intervention in Syria, and its involvement in numerous African conflicts. As such, training pro-Assad forces in FPV drone usage is “consistent with Russia’s application of its new generation warfare construct”, which Dr Kolomeitz explains possesses “an increasingly technological character”.

This can go a long way in offsetting the Russian state’s ailing weapons export industry. “If its FPV drone training role in Syria is anything to go by, it is not a long stretch to say that the sale of arms as a lever of influence is steadily being replaced by the sale of FPV drone expertise as a very niche lever of influence,” explains Dr Kolomeitz.

As such, the recent proliferation of FPV drone technology within pro-Assad forces carries significant implications beyond the battlefields of Syria. Through its experiences in Ukraine, the Russian military now has a level of expertise in modern large-scale combat far beyond virtually any other state in the world, barring Ukraine. This gives Russia the ability to project influence in a manner in which its rivals cannot, at least not to the same ability. Of particular significance in this is the welfare of civilians in Russia’s area of influence. Russian troops and their allies have developed a deserved reputation for their harm to civilians – whether in Ukraine, Syria, the Central African Republic, or the Sahel states, death stalks civilians wherever the Russian military and its proxies are involved. Through sharing its technological expertise, the Russian state makes it easier for its questionable allies to accomplish their agendas. While Russian ambitions in Syria were dealt a major blow in December 2024, Moscow retains the capability to exert influence through its military expertise.

FPV drones certainly represent a new frontier in warfare, and unfortunately, Russia is at the cutting edge of this frontier. The onus is on everyone else to catch up.

The Arabic version of this investigation can be found on Daraj.media.

The post From the Steppes of Donbas to the Deserts of Syria appeared first on SIRAJ.

From espionage to arms deliveries: the shady practices behind the Iranian ships in Antwerp

Radwan Awad — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 14:12:21 +0000

The Iranian ship Shiba that called at the port of Antwerp is suspected of having spied on Western ships off the coast of Yemen on the way, so that the Houthi rebels could attack them. ©Rv

On a rainy Wednesday, last year in September, a 188-metre-long container ship came to the port of Antwerp. The fourteen-year-old ship named Shiba sails under the flag of Iran. It was given berths in the port of Antwerp in the Churchill Terminal and the ABES terminal of Katoen Natie. All by the book.

But a month earlier, the Shiba showed a very suspicious travel pattern when passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. The ship departed Iran on 23 July, anchored in the Suez Canal on 9 August and arrived at its destination in Syria on 12 August. Between 2 and 5 August, it floated around seemingly aimlessly in the Gulf of Aden. Western security services had also noticed this, which see no logical, economic explanation for this. Every day of delay costs the shipowner money, so why all the delay?

In the same period, on August 3, the Yemeni Houthi rebels fired a missile at the Greek container ship Groton that was sailing in the Gulf of Aden at the time. To avoid such terror attacks and stay under the radar, Western ships switch off their automatic identification system (AIS) in that area. But the Houthi rebels are getting help from Iran for their attacks. The Iranian ship Shiba is suspected of having signaled the passing Western ship to the Houthis.

In January last year, a similar scenario took place. At that time, the Shiba was also hanging around there when the Houthis fired a missile at the dry bulk carrier Gibraltar Eagle on January 15.

And in March last year, it happened again, after the Shiba had left our country on February 25 and before the ship was back in Iran on March 13. In that interim period, the Shiba once again sailed through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, while the Houthis attacked the Propel Fortune with drones on March 8.

Such hidden Iranian aid to the Houthis is burning topical. In recent weeks, the rebels continued to target American targets, after which US President Donald Trump declared last week that he wants to eradicate the Houthis. Trump called on Iran to immediately stop all support to the rebels.

In addition to the Shiba, five other Iranian ships appear to have used their commercial traffic with the port of Antwerp as a cover for shady practices. The other ships are named Artam, Artenos, Azargoun, Daisy and Kashan. They are all large container ships that are 187 to more than 220 meters long and sail under the flag of Iran.

De Tijd started monitoring the shipping routes of the six suspected Iranian ships in September last year and mapped them on the basis of ship databases. We spoke with those involved in the ports and with security services in various countries. We also collected documents such as inspection reports and received help from fellow journalists from Syria in recent months (SIRAJ), Iran (Zamaneh), Germany (Paper Trail Media), Netherlands (Fo llow the Money) and the collectiveOCCRP. This research by De Tijd will therefore be published in English, Arabic and Farsi (the official language of Iran).

Weapons for Hezbollah

The shady practices of the Iranian ships do not appear to be limited to espionage for the benefit of the Houthis. According to Western and Israeli security services, they also made arms deliveries on their way to Antwerp at stopovers in Syria and Russia. It would mainly concern transports of parts to make weapons, rather than finished products, as well as of ammunition and dual-use goods that can be used for both civilian and military purposes. From Syria, the ammunition, weapons and parts would also have been transported to the radical Lebanese movement Hezbollah.

Our investigation into the traffic data confirms that the six Iranian ships have been going to Syria alternately and almost every month on their commercial route to Antwerp in recent years. This happened at least 27 times in 28 months (between June 2022 and October last year).

The six Iranian ships almost always followed the same route. That started after a long stay in Iran, often in Bandar Abbas, the country’s largest port controlled by the Iranian regime. From there, the ships set sail via the Suez Canal, usually without a stopover, to the main Syrian seaport in Latakia.

After one to three days in the Syrian port, the Iranian ships sailed on to Antwerp and other European ports in Italy (Ravenna), Spain (Valencia and Bilbao) and Romania (Constanta). The passage in Antwerp was often the last stop on the route and it usually took the longest. Then the ships returned to Iran.

What also makes the sailings suspicious: not all stopovers in Syria can be traced in the international shipping data on port visits and anchorages and berths, which the security services also use. We discovered at least one so-called dark port call, a stopover that has not been officially reported.

Our fellow journalists in Syria obtained confidential documents from the general intelligence service of the now fallen dictator Bashar al-Assad. They contain information about ships that came to Syrian ports between 2021 and 2024, including those from Latakia. Such a document shows that the Shiba visited the port of Latakia in May last year, which is not reflected in the official sailing records about that ship.

And the Iranian ships did not only make suspicious stopovers in Syria. On their way to Antwerp, the Azargoun and Artam also visited the Russian port of Novorossiysk. That happened in January and February 2023, about a year after Russia invaded Ukraine. In addition, the ship Artenos went to Venezuela in February and March 2023, also an alleged buyer of military systems from Iran. The ship also passed through Kenya and Tanzania, where Iran would also supply weapons.

Container numbers

The Belgian security services tried to catch the Iranian ships last year, De Tijd learned. This happened when the 207-metre-long container ship Azargoun entered the port of Antwerp on 30 June last year. Our security services had received exceptionally precise data from the Americans, even with the numbers of the containers in which the arms transports had taken place. But a thorough inspection, including of the crew’s cabins, found nothing at all. Not even remnants or any evidence that there were weapons or weapon parts on board before.

It illustrates how our security services have had to watch with dismay in recent years how the traffic to Antwerp was used for the anti-Western maneuvers of the Iranian regime. The alleged arms deliveries took place each time before the vessels behaved like legitimate merchant ships in European ports. When they came here to pick up goods, they were not even dual-use cargoes. So the ships have never been caught in Antwerp.

The issue was followed up by the Belgian Maritime Information Crossroads (MIK) and discussed with other countries in the North Sea and Channel Maritime Information Group (NSCMIG).

The Iranian ships also passed on information to Iran when they encountered military ships here. For example, the Daisy has already been spotted in Belgian waters when a military exercise with minehunters was underway.

Solemnly welcomed

Things may change. In March 2016, the Azargoun was the very first Iranian ship to be allowed to return to Antwerp after the EU had concluded a nuclear agreement with Iran and the sanctions had been lifted. The Azargoun was solemnly welcomed in the Deurganck dock by an official delegation led by the Antwerp port aldermen, eager to re-establish decades-old ties with Iran. Because until sanctions were introduced in 2010, Antwerp was the most important European destination for cargo from Iran.

Our investigation shows that the Azargoun came to the port of Antwerp seven times in the past three years and stopped six times in the Syrian port of Latakia along the way.

After a stop in the Russian port of Novorossiysk, the Azargoun was subjected to a purely technical inspection here in March 2023 at most. In the process, the inspectors discovered 37 defects, 16 of which were sufficiently heavy to hold the ship until everything was repaired. Among other things, the fire doors, fire extinguishing system and fire dampers were defective, the speed and distance indicator did not work, as did the oil filters and the emergency generator. But after 24 days, the Azargoun was released again and was able to continue its activities.

The crews of the Iranian ships also arouse suspicion. We learned that the ships are also accompanied by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who pretend to be different. “They do this to circumvent the sanctions and to spy in European ports,” it sounds. Our security services also heard this, but could not prove that the ships here had members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on board incognito.

The confidential Syrian documents that our colleagues in Damascus found in the former headquarters of Assad’s general intelligence service contain the names, nationalities, dates of birth, passport details and functions of the varying 27 to 28 crew members of the Iranian ships Azargoun, Daisy, Kashan and Shiba when they visited the Syrian port. In addition to a handful of Indians, the changing crews, ranging from the captain to the cook, appear to consist only of Iranians.

An initial screening of the lists of names shows that there are at least some remarkable profiles among them. In addition to many crew members who are linked to the Iranian state-owned shipping company Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), there are also those who are not known as seafarers at all but officially have completely different, non-shipping-related jobs. There is also an Iranian officer who has a track record as an investigator in the General Inspection Department of the Iranian Law Enforcement Force.

Katoen Natie: ‘As a terminal, we don’t choose the ship’

‘The terminal follow the regulations, we don’t choose the ship,” says Patrik Naenen, business unit manager at Katoen Natie’s ABES terminal that received the Iranian ship Shiba. ‘It is the port authority that determines which ships are admitted and it follows the rules imposed by Europe.’

‘So if a ship is sanctioned, it won’t come. If it is not sanctioned, it can be booked by a forwarder, who then assigns the ship to a terminal to do the loading and unloading operations. The forwarder makes contracts with the terminals in the ports, which determine the pricing, and on that basis he decides where to send a particular ship with its cargo. That choice will be determined by the price, but sometimes also by technical or nautical aspects, such as the draught.’

‘It is also important to understand that it is not because an Iranian ship is coming, that you are doing business with an Iranian company. The ship is only the vehicle, the cargo is another matter. Katoen Natie is clear about this: we will not work with an Iranian company to set up a certain export flow. This is something else: we just carry out an operation on behalf of a forwarder.’

‘As a terminal, you don’t necessarily have a view of the cargo. If it is bulk, it is of course loose goods and then you can see what goes on or off the ship, and there are also documents that state which category of goods it is, but we do not do the check, it is customs that checks the goods.’

The owner of the Churchill Terminal on the right bank of the port of Antwerp, where the six Iranian ships came most often, refused to answer our questions. The terminal with a total surface area of 27 hectares and 70,000 square meters of storage capacity is owned by the Belgian group Nova Natie. CEO Maarten Geerardyn: ‘We are absolutely not going to respond to that.’

Front company

Officially, the Iranian container ships are owned by the Iranian company Hafez Darya Arya Shipping (HDS). But that would only be a front company of the Iranian state shipping company IRISL, which is known for providing logistical support to the Iranian army. The sanctions against Iran have caused dozens of ‘independent private companies’ to emerge in the Iranian shipping industry, but in reality they still operate under the umbrella of IRISL and used to be integral departments of it.

IRISL had already been sanctioned by the US and on November 18 last year, the state-owned shipping company also ended up on the EU sanctions list. The Council of the EU then expanded its sanctions against Iran for its support – with missiles and drones – of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Neither IRISL nor HDS answered our questions, but a German shipping agent who has been working with HDS since 2018 did. The German agent sees no problems with this cooperation and emphasizes that he only acted for HDS, never for IRISL. ‘Because there were no sanctions against HDS in the EU – and there still are none today – we thought it safe to operate as a line agent and ship broker for HDS within the EU. We are not aware that IRISL is the ultimate owner of the ships.’

Nevertheless, the Germans have now suspended cooperation with HDS ‘purely as a precautionary measure’, because according to them the sanctions against IRISL are ‘broad and vaguely formulated’. The EU sanctioning of IRISL has therefore suspended the visits of the six Iranian ships to the port of Antwerp until further notice.

The German agent said he did not know what goods the Iranian ships loaded and unloaded in the ports in Syria and Russia. ‘That falls outside the scope of our contractual obligations.’ The Germans say they only know about the innocent goods that were imported and exported here in Antwerp. ‘Typical imports on HDS ships are polyethylene for packaging, used cooking oil for the biofuel sector, ceramic products such as tiles and foodstuffs such as pistachios. Exports from Antwerp to Iran are new machines, including for the beverage industry, used industrial equipment such as car parts, textile processing machines and insulation materials.’

All Iranian weapons intercepted en route to Houthis

Between May 2021 and January 2023, the US authorities already intercepted a mass weapon of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards destined for Yemen. This happened during routine maritime security operations in and around the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. It involved more than 9,000 rifles, 284 machine guns, 194 rocket launchers, more than 70 anti-tank missiles and more than 700,000 pieces of ammunition. The French navy was also able to seize thousands of assault rifles, machine guns and anti-tank missiles in January 2023 in the Gulf of Oman, coming from Iran and on their way to the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Now that the six Iranian ships are no longer coming to Antwerp (for the time being) – the Daisy was the last to arrive here until November 9, 2024 – it is striking that they have immediately shifted their entire route. They have not been to Syria or Russia in recent months. The Azargoun is now moving to China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Libya. The Artenos now goes to India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the UAE. The Kashan to India, the UAE, Kenya and Tanzania. The Shiba to India, Libya, Turkey and the UAE. The Artam to China, India, Tanzania, Kenya and the UAE.

Can the ships still return to Antwerp? Antwerp Port Authority refers ‘all questions about Iranian ships’ to the Federal Public Service Mobility. According to Mobility spokesman Thomas De Spiegelaere, it is currently sufficient that the Iranian state-owned shipping company IRISL has been sanctioned to no longer allow the six ships to enter our ports, even though those ships are officially owned by another company. ‘IRISL is listed in the databases as the beneficial owner of the ships. That is enough for us to stop them. A ship has several managers and operators.’

Everything checked

“But other Iranian ships that do not belong to IRISL are still allowed to come to Belgian ports for legitimate reasons,” says the spokesperson for the FPS Mobility. “There are no sanctions against Iranian ships in general. We are not bound by the American sanctions against Iran and will therefore not follow them.’

In 2023 and 2024, twelve different Iranian ships came to Antwerp, accounting for 44 visits. In 20 of the 44 cases, it concerned ships that were sanctioned by the US. And six of the twelve ships would therefore have been involved in espionage or arms deliveries.

The question is whether other Iranian ships can now simply use Antwerp as a ‘cover’. Because the six ships remained untouched all this time. De Spiegelaere: ‘When these ships still came to the Belgian ports, there were no EU sanctions. There were sanctions against specific goods or dual-use goods. But that has always been checked, the calls of these ships were always legitimate and the goods that were loaded or unloaded were in accordance with the rules. So there were no legal grounds for refusing these ships.’

For our investigation into the Iranian ships, we received help from foreign fellow journalists: the Iranian Mahtab Divsalar (Zamaneh), the Syrian Mohammad Bassiki (SIRAJ), the German Ruben Schaar (Paper Trail Media), Birte Schohaus and Dimitri Tokmetzis (Follow the Money)and of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

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