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Missy Ryan
Reporter covering the Pentagon, military issues and national security
ON BOARD USS JASON DUNHAM, IN THE PERSIAN GULF – US experts on Thursday inspected a shipment of weapons recently seized by the US Navy which, according to US officials, could provide further evidence of Iranian support for Houthi rebels in Yemen.
US inspectors will seek to identify the origin of some 2,500 AK-47s seized in the Gulf of Aden on August 28, US officials said.
The weapons are stored aboard USS Jason Dunham, a guided missile destroyer who confiscated the arms of a ship encountered about 70 miles off the southern coast of Yemen.
Vice-Admiral Scott Stearney, commander of US naval forces in the Middle East, said US officials had conducted a preliminary review of weapons but were waiting to know how to handle them until US investigators managed to their own conclusions.
"The US inspection team allows us to have a level of validation accepted on a larger scale," Stearney told a small group of journalists. The team members have weapons expertise from Iran, Yemen and Somalia. "Everything that connects this part of the theater," he said.
The seizure comes as the Trump government sought to stifle any outside support to the Houthis, who are fighting Saudi Arabia, an ally of the United States and other countries since 2015. The US provides military support limited to the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia. conducts air and ground operations in Yemen, including air-to-air refueling and intelligence support.
More than 2,000 AK-47 automatic rifles are on board the USS guided missile destroyer Jason Dunham. (Jonathan Clay / US Navy)
Critics argue that US support has allowed the Saudi-led coalition to conduct an air campaign that results in repeatedly targeting civilian sites and many non-combatant victims, even as the war exacerbates a humanitarian crisis. US officials said this week that half of Yemen's population was now living in "pre-famine" conditions.
At least 21 Yemeni civilians were killed Wednesday in airstrikes on a market in the port of Hodeida in the Red Sea, according to the US aid agency.
Frictions over Riyadh's wartime management had risen long before relations with the United States fell into crisis after the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who, according to Saudi officials, was killed in the morning. Consulate of the country in Istanbul this month.
Since the beginning of the war in Yemen, US and Allied naval forces have been seizing shipments of weapons that the US government said originated in Iran and were intended for the Houthis, a Shiite group that took control of the capital. almost four years ago.
Cmdr. John Hamilton said that the ship's helicopter had filmed two small boats, a skiff and a traditional dhow, transferring a cargo at sea at night. The next morning, Dunham staff dispatched personnel, who determined that the vessels were not reported and therefore considered stateless. After boarding the skiff, the US team recovered weapons wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam sleeves.
Three members of the skiff crew boarded the Dunham after US officials determined that the craft, weighed down by guns, was no longer able to navigate. The men were handed over to the Yemeni authorities, officials said, and the skiff was destroyed. Officials were unable to recover 500 AK-47 from this vessel.
Navy officers provided journalists with access to weapons, which were stacked at a height of about five feet and a depth of four weapons on the Dunham. Firearms, which according to officials were new when they were confiscated, rust quickly in the sea air.
US officials believe that the banned ships have embarked from Somalia and suspect that the shipment would have been made with the support of Iran.
Gregory Johnsen, who was previously part of the UN's expert group on Yemen, said the inspectors, in addition to reviewing the weapons, would likely request documents found on the ship, information about them. communications that his crew might have had with the coast, and could also request information, including maps, to determine the vessel's course. It will be more difficult to establish the origin because it is about small weapons readily available rather than larger weapons.
Determining that weapons are related to Iran would strengthen the Trump administration's assertion that the country is providing deadly aid to the Houthis.
In recent months, the White House and the State Department have imposed a new urgency in their campaign against the reach of the Iranian military and have intensified the economic measures taken by Iranian affiliates.
The Trump administration has presented other seized weapons allegedly related to Iran on a military base near Washington. US authorities have also accused Iran of providing the Houthis with more sophisticated weapons, including ballistic missiles threatening Saudi Arabia.
The weapons were found on a small skiff about 70 miles off the southern coast of Yemen. (Jonathan Clay / Handout / US Navy)
Securing trade around Yemen, located along the world's most-borrowed waters, has become a top priority for the Pentagon because of the Houthi's military might and their history of attacking ships related to the Hague. Saudi Arabia or its supporters. Bab al-Mandeb, where the southwestern tip of Yemen is only 18 nautical miles from the Horn of Africa, raises serious concerns because of the volume of oil and commercial goods who pass it.
"So trying to get the needle through while it is moving is something in which we excel in the military, but we have to do it in a very, very, very collective way. "This involves working with an international naval coalition that fights piracy and terrorism," said Stearney.
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