Iran arms Houthis in Yemen via new route across Gulf
Iran has begun using a new route across the Arabian Gulf to ship arms to their Houthi allies in Yemen.
In March, regional and western sources said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was shipping weapons and military advisers to the Houthis directly to Yemen or through Somalia.
But this route risked contact with international naval vessels on patrol in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, according to an exclusive report by Reuters.
For the past six months, the Revolutionary Guard has been using waters farther up the Arabian Gulf between Kuwait and Iran as it looks for new ways to beat an embargo on arms shipments to fellow Shiites in the Houthi movement, western and Iranian sources said to Reuters.
Using this new route, Iranian ships transfer equipment to smaller vessels at the northern end of the Gulf, where they face less scrutiny. The transhipments take place in Kuwaiti waters and in nearby international shipping lanes, the sources said.
“Parts of missiles, launchers and drugs are smuggled into Yemen via Kuwaiti waters,” a senior Iranian official said to Reuters. “The route is sometimes used for transferring cash as well.”
The official said that “what is especially smuggled recently, or to be precise in the past six months, are parts of missiles that cannot be produced in Yemen”. Cash and drugs can be used to fund Houthi activities, he said.
Yemen is in the middle of a civil war that pits the Houthis against the government of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE.
Efforts to intercept military equipment by the coalition have had limited success, with no reported maritime seizures of arms or ammunition so far this year and only a few seizures on the mainland route from the east of Yemen.
Independent investigators from the United Nations, who monitor Yemen sanctions, told the Security Council in the latest confidential report that they continue to investigate potential
arms trafficking routes. They said the UAE had reported 11 attacks since September last year against its ground forces by Houthis using drones, or UAVs, armed with explosives.
“Although Houthi-aligned media announced that the Sanaa-based ministry of defence could manufacture the UAV, in reality they are assembled from components supplied by an outside source and shipped into Yemen,” the report said, referring to the ministry of defence under Houthi control.
The report said that the Houthis “will eventually deplete their limited stock of missiles”. This would force the Shiite rebels to end a campaign of missile attacks against Saudi territory unless they are resupplied.
A UN report in January said the Houthis needed to replenish stocks of anti-tank guided weapons.
The arms smuggling operation may not turn the tide of the conflict, but it will allow the Houthis to receive stable supplies of equipment that is otherwise hard to obtain.
“The volume of the activity, I don’t call it a trade, is not very large. But it is a safe route,” a second Iranian official said.
Asked if the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was involved, the second official said: “No activity goes ahead in the Gulf without the IRGC being involved. This activity involves a huge amount of money as well as transferring equipment to Iranian-backed group.”
A third senior Iranian official confirmed the shipment activity and pointed to IRGC involvement.
The IRGC declined to comment on the arms shipments..
Houthi officials were also not available for comment, but in March a rebel leader claimed accusations that Iran was smuggling weapons into Yemen were an attempt to cover up Saudi Arabia’s failure to prevail in the war there.
Western shipping and security sources said that since March there had been an increase in suspicious activity involving Iranian-flagged ships in waters near Kuwait.
To avoid detection, the mainly Iranian-flagged vessels switch off their identification transponders, sometimes for days, and rendezvous with other ships or drop supplies close to buoys.