UK navy seizes Iranian weapons in Gulf of Oman

The cargo was seized along a route historically used for arms smuggling to YemenDisclosure / British Royal Navy

Published 02/03/2023 10:00 | Updated on 02/03/2023 10:01

On February 23, with the help of US forces, the British Navy seized a shipment of Iranian-made weapons in the Gulf of Oman, the Embassy of the United Kingdom in the United Arab Emirates announced this Thursday (2).

The weapons – Iranian Dehlavih anti-tank missiles and medium-range missile components – were shipped from southern Iran on a ship that was detected by US forces and intercepted by the British, the embassy said in a statement.

The seizure “happened along a sea route that has historically been used to smuggle illegal arms to Yemen,” the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said.

Yemeni leaders – backed by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia – accuse the Islamic Republic of supplying weapons to the Houthi rebels, which they deny.

Since 2014, the conflict in Yemen has killed hundreds of thousands of people and plunged the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Fighting has been halted since April 2022, thanks to a UN-brokered six-month ceasefire. That ceasefire expired last October and the two sides have not reached an agreement.