Iran utilizes Turkey as a support hub for Yemeni proxy the Houthi rebels

The US Treasury’s decision to sanction a Turkish company for financing arms transactions to Yemen’s Houthi rebels on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force is not surprising. Numerous similar shell companies, established in Turkey by Iranian proxies, have been operating without consequences under the oversight of the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Indeed, Al Aman Kargo İthalat İhracat ve Nakliyat Limited Şirketi, an export, import and transportation firm that was sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on December 28, 2023, was established just three months after the Erdogan government suppressed the country’s most extensive investigation into the Quds Force network in Turkey.

According to trade registry records, Al Aman was founded on May 5, 2014 by a Syrian national named M. Amin Balid, residing in Aleppo, with 2 million Turkish lira in capital. Its office was located in Istanbul’s conservative Fatih district. The incorporation bylaws indicate that its primary business focus was logistics and transportation services.

The company’s establishment took place after the Erdogan government killed a confidential terrorism investigation into the IRGC Quds Force in February 2014. The investigation, initiated in 2011, was halted when the government learned about it. The investigating prosecutor was dismissed before securing detention warrants for suspects or filing an indictment. The suspects avoided legal action due to Erdogan’s intervention, apparently safeguarding pro-Iranian assets and aiding their Quds Force handlers in escaping from Turkey.