The US Navy said Tuesday it found 70 tons of a rocket fuel component hidden between sacks of fertilizers aboard a ship bound for Yemen from Iran, the first such seizure in that country's war years after the ceasefire was broken.
The Navy said the amount of ammonium perchlorate discovered could fire more than a dozen intermediate-range ballistic missiles, the same weapons that Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have used to attack forces allied with the internationally recognized government in the country one led by Saudi Arabia. coalition that supports them.
The apparent arms race comes as Iran has threatened Saudi Arabia, the United States and other nations during months of protests demanding the overthrow of the Islamic Republic's theocracy. Tehran blames foreign powers, rather than its own frustrated population, for fomenting the protests that have killed at least 344 people and arrested 15,820 amid mounting crackdowns on dissent.
The Houthis could not be reached immediately for comment. The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "This type of delivery and the sheer volume of explosive material alone is a serious problem because it is destabilizing," Commander Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the Navy's 5th Fleet, based in the Middle East, told The Associated Press. "Illegal arms shipments from Iran to Yemen are fueling instability and violence.
The US Coast Guard's USCGC ship John Scheuerman and the guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans stopped a traditional wooden sailing vessel known as a dhow on November 8 in the Gulf of Oman, the Navy said. During a week-long search, seafarers discovered bags of ammonium perchlorate hidden in what was originally a 100-ton cargo of urea. Urea, a fertilizer, can also be used to make explosives.
The dhow was so laden with cargo that it posed a hazard to nearby ships in the Gulf of Oman, a route that runs from the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow estuary of the Persian Gulf, to the Indian Ocean. The Navy eventually sank the ship with much of the material on board because of the danger, Hawkins said.
The Sullivans handed over the four Yemeni crew members to the country's internationally recognized government on Tuesday. When asked how the Navy knew to stop the ship. Hawkins said only that the Navy knew from "multiple sources" that the ship was carrying the fuel and that it was headed for Yemen from Iran. He declined to elaborate.
"Since it was on a route typically used to smuggle illegal arms and drugs from Iran to Yemen, it really tells you what you need to know," Hawkins said. “He clearly had no intention of doing good. Yemen's capital Sanaa in September 2014, forcing the internationally recognized government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition armed with US weapons and intelligence entered the war in March 2015 alongside the Yemeni government-in-exile.
Years of inconclusive fighting have brought the poorest nation in the Arab world to the brink of famine. A United Nations arms embargo has banned arms sales to the Houthis since 2014. Despite this, Iran has long transferred rifles, bazookas, rockets and other weapons to the Houthis via dhow shipments.
Although Iran denies arming the Houthis, independent experts, Western nations and US experts abroad have traced seized components from detained ships back to Iran.
A six-month ceasefire in the Yemen war, the longest of the conflict, expired in October despite diplomatic efforts to renew it. Fighting, including more than 14,500 civilians.
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