https://arab.news/zp6fd
- Iran denies arming the Houthis despite evidence to the contrary
- Weapons discovered aboard what the US Navy described as a stateless fishing vessel
DUBAI: The US Navy seized a large cache of assault rifles and ammunition being smuggled by a fishing ship from Iran likely bound for war-ravaged Yemen.
US Navy patrol ships discovered the weapons aboard what the Navy described as a stateless fishing vessel in an operation that began on Monday in the northern reaches of the Arabian Sea off Oman and Pakistan. Sailors boarded the vessel and found 1,400 Kalashnikov-style rifles and 226,600 rounds of ammunition, as well five Yemeni crew members.
It鈥檚 just the latest interdiction amid the grinding war in Yemen that pits Iran-backed Houthi militants against the Arab coalition. Western nations and UN experts repeatedly have accused Iran of smuggling illicit weapons and technology into Yemen over the years, fueling the civil war and enabling the Houthis to fire missiles and drones into neighboring 抖阴短视频.
Iran denies arming the Houthis despite evidence to the contrary.
In an unusually pointed move, the statement late Wednesday from the Navy鈥檚 Bahrain-based 5th Fleet blamed Iran for sending the weapons, saying the boat was sailing along a route 鈥渉istorically used to traffic weapons unlawfully to the Houthis in Yemen.鈥�
鈥淭he direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of weapons to the Houthis violates UN Security Council Resolutions and US sanctions,鈥� the statement added.
Iran鈥檚 mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the interception.
US Navy patrol ships transferred the confiscated weapons to the guided-missile destroyer USS O鈥橩ane before sinking the fishing vessel because of the 鈥渉azard鈥� it posed to commercial shipping. It said the Yemeni crew would be repatriated.
American seizures of arms bound for Yemen鈥檚 war, typically Kalashnikov rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, began in 2016 and have continued intermittently. Yemen is awash with small arms that have been smuggled into poorly controlled ports over years of conflict.
The Navy鈥檚 5th fleet said it has confiscated some 8,700 illicit weapons so far this year across the 2.5 million-square-mile area it patrols, including the strategically important Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf.