Persian Gulf smuggling crackdown
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Navy on Sunday said it had seized a boat in the Gulf of Oman carrying fertilizer used to make explosives — the same boat that was caught last year smuggling weapons to Yemen. The British Royal Navy said it had confiscated 2,295 pounds of illegal drugs in the same waters.
The interdictions were the latest in the volatile waters of the Persian Gulf, as American and British authorities step up seizures of contraband during the grinding conflict in Yemen and amid drug trafficking in the region.
The U.S. Navy’s Mideastbased 5th Fleet said its guided-missile destroyer USS Cole and patrol ships on Tuesday halted and searched the boat, a stateless fishing dhow that was sailing from Iran to warravaged Yemen along a wellworn arms-smuggling route.
U.S. forces found 40 tons of urea fertilizer, known to be a key ingredient in homemade improvised explosive devices, hidden aboard the boat.
Authorities said the vessel had been previously seized off the coast of Somalia and was found last year to be loaded with thousands of assault rifles and rocket launchers, among other weapons.
United Nations experts
say weapons with such technical characteristics likely come from Iran to support Houthi rebels.
The Navy turned over the vessel, cargo and Yemeni crew to Yemen’s coast guard last week.
Yemen is awash with small arms that have been smuggled into the country’s poorly controlled ports over years of conflict.
Since 2015, Iranianbacked Houthi rebels have been battling a Saudi-led military coalition for control of the nation.
Iran says it politically supports the rebels but denies arming them, despite evidence to the contrary.
The smuggled weapons have helped the Houthis gain an edge against the Saudi-led coalition in the seven-year war.
The violence has drastically escalated over the past week amid stalled international attempts at brokering peace. Following a deadly drone attack, claimed by the rebels, on Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi warplanes pounded the northern rebel-held province of Saada, hitting a prison and killing more than 80 detainees.
Officials also revealed Sunday that a British Royal Navy vessel on Jan. 15 had seized illegal drugs valued at
some $26 million from a boat sailing through the Gulf of Oman.
The HMS Montrose confiscated 1,461 pounds of heroin, 191 pounds of methamphetamine and 641 pounds of hashish and marijuana, the joint maritime task force said in a statement.
The task force did not elaborate on the source of the drugs, who had manufactured them or their ultimate destination.
Iran over the last decade has seen an explosion in the use of methamphetamine — known in Persian as or “glass” — which has bled into neighboring countries.