US Navy Seizes Weapons Likely Sent by Iran To Arm Houthis in Yemen

The US Navy 5th Fleet announced late Wednesday that it had seized a large cache of weapons and ammunition from a stateless fishing ship that was likely smuggling the arms from Iran to supply the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The operation began Monday in the Arabian Sea, off the coasts of Oman and Pakistan. Sailors who boarded the ship found 1,400 Kalashnikov-style rifles and 226,600 rounds of ammunition, which were transferred to the guided-missile destroyer USS O’Kane. Five Yemeni crew members who operated the ship will be repatriated, the Navy said. The fishing vessel was sunk. The US has since 2016 repeatedly confiscated weapons that it says Iran is shipping to Yemen, enabling the Houthis to target the Saudi-led military coalition and Saudi Arabia, itself and prolonging the civil war that has killed some 130,000 people and led to conditions widely described as currently the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Iran denies that it is arming the Houthis. “The direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of weapons to the Houthis violates UN Security Council resolutions and US sanctions,” the Navy said in a statement.