BALTIMORE, Md. – As unrest continues in the city of Baltimore, security experts are now saying the city has become yet another front in the growing proxy wars between the Middle Eastern countries of Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The two countries have been engaged in an escalating series of conflicts in the Middle East, from Iraq to Syria to Yemen and now Sandtown on the West Side. While the two countries have long competed for influence in the city's drug trade, where Ayatollah Khomenei briefly worked in the 1970s as a street dealer and aspiring Hip-Hop artist, the rivalry officially broke into the open last week, following riots aimed at the Saudi-trained Baltimore Police Department.
After Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used the popular hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on Twitter to blast the Baltimore police, the Saudi foreign ministry responded with the hashtag #PoliceLivesMatter and blamed much of the unrest on Iranian-backed "thugs" from Hezbollah and the Black Guerrilla Family.
On Thursday, Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani took a break from directing operations in the Iraqi city of Tikrit to stand in front of Baltimore City Hall and promise increased weapons shipments to the city. An Iranian convoy consisting of six dhows and a tugboat with a rocket launcher have already departed the port of Bandar Abbas and should reach Baltimore by early August.
