Weapons seized |
Australiannaval ship has seized a large arms cache that may have come from Iran and
headed to Yemen by way of Somalia.
The Australian Navy said that one
of its ships patrolling the region, the HMAS Darwin, intercepted a small,
stateless fishing vessel about 170 nautical miles off the coast of Oman when it
made the discovery.
On board they found more than
2,000 pieces of weaponry including 1,989 AK-47 assault rifles and 100rocket-propelled grenades.
According to a U.S. assessment,
the weapons were believed to be initially sent from Iran and were likely
intended for Houthi rebels in Yemen, Lt. Ian McConnaughey with the U.S. Navy
told CNN.
U.S. Central Command is still
gathering more information to determine the arms' final destination,
McConnaughey said.
An Australian Defense Ministryspokesman said there were 18 people of various nationalities on board the ship,
but officials could not initially confirm that their identification documents
were valid.
Authorities believe the weapons
were headed for Somalia based on interviews with crew members, but that
information is preliminary and may change as the investigation continues, the
spokesman said.
The crew was allowed to depart
after the weapons were seized, in accordance with international maritime law.
Combined Maritime Forces
Australia is part of a multinational naval
partnership, the Combined Maritime Forces, that helps police more than three million
square miles of international waters.
CMF routinely conducts boardings
to determine the origin of unmarked vessels (so-called "flag verification
boardings") on a "regular basis," according to McConaughey. A
similar number of weapons was seized in September by coalition forces.
The Darwin was on its first
patrol in the region when it conducted this seizure, Vice Admiral DavidJohnston of the Australian Navy said.
"Darwin's successful
boarding and subsequent seizure of the weapons concealed under fishing nets
highlights the need to remain vigilant in the region," he said.
Previous accusations
Iran has been accused before of attempting to arm the
Shiite Houthis in a civil war that's largely a proxy fight between those two
parties and Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who is backed by Saudi
Arabia and other Sunni gulf states.
For years, the Houthis have held
sway in northern Yemen but lacked influence in the country's Sunni-led
government.
The Houthi rebels seized the
presidential palace in January last year, temporarily forcing Hadi from Sanaa,
the capital city.
He returned in large part with
the help of airstrikes from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait,
Bahrain, Qatar and others that joined to battle Houthis last March.
Just south of Yemen across the
Gulf of Aden, Somalia has been mired in similar violence since civil war broke
out there in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the Siad Barre regime.
Its relatively ineffective institutions -- Somalia has consistently been ranked
as one of the worlds most fragile or failed states by international observers
-- largely failed to stymie the rise of piracy and Islamic extremism.
The United Nations has placed
arms embargoes on Somalia and rebels in Yemen
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