A large cache of assault rifles and ammunition have been seized by the US Navy after a fishing ship from Iran has tried to smuggle it most likely to the war-ravaged Yemen.
The weapons – 1,400 Kalashnikov-style rifles and 226,600 rounds of ammunition – were discovered aboard a stateless fishing vessel with five Yemeni crew members by the US Navy patrol ships in an operation in the northern reaches of the Arabian Sea off Oman and Pakistan that began on Monday.
This is just the latest interception amid the ravaging war in Yemen that pits Houthi militants backed by Iran against a Saudi-led military coalition.
Over the years, Iran has been repeatedly accused by the UN experts and Western nations of smuggling illicit weapons and technology into Yemen to enable the Houthis to attack neighboring Saudi Arabia with missiles and drones, but Tehran denies the accusations despite evidence to the contrary.
Quite unusually, the Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet blamed in a statement late Wednesday Iran for sending the weapons, warning Tehran that it violates UNSC Resolutions and US sanctions with any direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of weapons to the Houthis.
After sinking the fishing vessel because of the “hazard” it posed to the commercial shipping, US Navy patrol ships transferred the confiscated weapons to USS O’Kane and noted the Yemeni crew would be repatriated.
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