The U.S. Navy helped French naval forces to intercept and seize thousands of assault rifles and a half-million rounds of ammunition headed to Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels from Iran, officials said on Feb. 1.
In a statement, the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said the confiscation occurred on Jan. 15 in the Gulf of Oman, along routes “historically used to traffic weapons unlawfully from Iran to Yemen.”
Officials said more than 3,000 assault rifles, 578,000 rounds of ammunition, and 23 advanced anti-tank guided missiles were recovered in cooperation with international naval partners.
“The seizure is one of four significant illicit cargo interdictions over the past two months that have prevented more than 5,000 weapons and 1.6 million rounds of ammunition from reaching Yemen,” CENTCOM stated.
Yemen War Sparks Humanitarian Crises
Iran didn’t publicly acknowledge the seizure. On Twitter, CENTCOM shared a photo of the seized rifles and ammunition that looked similar to others previously captured by U.S. forces that were tied to Tehran.Iran has denied that it backs the Houthis—a rebel group that seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 and overthrew the internationally recognized government—against a Saudi-led coalition aided by the United States.
However, the U.N., independent experts, and Western nations have all traced seized weaponry—ranging from night-vision scopes, rifles, and missiles—to Tehran after finding them on detained vessels.
Arms sales and transfers to Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2216 and international law.
The latest weapons seizure comes after CENTCOM stated on Jan. 10 that its forces had intercepted a ship in the Gulf of Oman four days earlier that it believes came from Iran and was bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The U.S. Navy confiscated more than 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles from that ship, according to officials.
‘These Threats Have Our Attention’
In the Jan. 10 statement, CENTCOM commander Army Gen. Michael ‘Erik’ Kurilla said the “illegal flow of weapons through international waterways has a destabilizing effect on the region.”Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet, and Combined Maritime Forces, noted that the cache of weapons was part of a “continued pattern of destabilizing activity from Iran.”
“These threats have our attention. We remain vigilant in detecting any maritime activity that threatens freedom or compromises regional security,” he said.
According to officials, CENTCOM stopped 9,000 illegal weapons from reaching Yemen in 2021, which marks a 200 percent increase in the number of weapons seized over the previous year. In 2022, in collaboration with partner forces, CENTCOM seized weapons components for the same type of cruise missiles that were used to launch attacks against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates earlier in the year.
The seizure of weapons and ammunition originating from Iran and heading to Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels also comes after a ceasefire expired in October 2022 despite diplomatic efforts to renew it. A number of sporadic attacks have occurred since then, prompting alarm among experts who fear that the civil war could escalate.
