LONDON: Iran is becoming a world leader in cheap, military-grade drone production, the US Defense Intelligence Agency has warned.

Analysts say Tehran is using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a theater to advertise its drone capabilities, becoming a key backer of President Vladimir Putin’s war effort.

Three models are known to have been delivered to Russia by Iran: the Shahed 131 and 136 single-use drones, used to fly kamikaze missions, and the Mohajer-6, used for airstrikes and reconnaissance.

TUNIS: Tunisian authorities arrested the leader of the Ennahda opposition movement in a crackdown on rival politicians and critics of the North African country’s increasingly authoritarian President Kais Saied, lawyers said on Tuesday.

Noureddine Bhiri, a senior Ennahda leader, was taken into custody by armed police at his home in the capital, Tunis, late on Monday on suspicion of being part of a “conspiracy against the country’s security,” the movement’s lawyer, Ines Harrathi, wrote on Facebook.

TEHRAN: Iran, rocked by months of protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, has released several dozen well-known prisoners in an apparent attempt to appease critics of the government.

The limited amnesty comes as the frequency and size of rallies have eased off in the winter months since their peak after the mid-September death in custody of Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman.

AL-MUKALLA: A Houthi-run military court in Yemen’s capital Sanaa has sentenced in absentia Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Mohsen Al-Daeri and 29 military officers to death on charges of cooperating with the militia’s opponents, including the coalition to establish legitimacy in Yemen.

The Central Military Court in Sanaa ordered the execution of 30 military officers, their expulsion from the army, and the confiscation of their property inside and outside the country.

LONDON: An appeal in the UK to raise funds for victims of the earthquakes that struck Turkiye and Syria received £60 million ($72.8 million) in three days, The Daily Mail reported on Monday.

The appeal, launched by the Disasters Emergency Committee, supports 15 charities, and has the support of King Charles III and Camilla, queen consort, as well as the Prince and Princess of Wales, who said they were “horrified” by the “harrowing images” of the areas affected.