{{A cache of weapons seized from a ship off the coast of Yemen had markings that indicate they came from Iran, a U.S. official said Tuesday.}}<\/p>\n
The markings on those weapons — which included surface-to-air missiles, potent explosives and rocket-propelled grenades — indicate they came from Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities, said the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information.<\/p>\n
The weapons were believed to be headed for Shiite Muslim insurgents in Yemen, the official told press. The country’s government has fought periodic battles against the Houthis, a Shiite rebel movement in northern Yemen, in a conflict seen as both separatist and sectarian.<\/p>\n
Yemen accused Shiite-majority Iran of supporting the Houthis during their last major revolt, in 2009, which saw Sunni-led Saudi Arabia launching airstrikes against suspected Houthis on its side of the border.
\nIran denied the allegations and criticized the Saudi strikes.<\/p>\n
Yemen’s government announced the arms seizure on Monday, saying the ship had been boarded in Yemeni territorial waters in the Arabian Sea on January 23. <\/p>\n
The American destroyer USS Farragut was working with Yemeni authorities when they spotted the vessel in question, an Obama administration official said Monday.<\/p>\n
The ship had several flags onboard, but no reliable documentation showing where it came from, the official added.<\/p>\n
The firepower included anti-aircraft missiles, C4 military-grade explosives, ammunition and bomb-making equipment such as circuits, remote triggers and various handheld explosives, the Yemenis said. <\/p>\n
The vessel carried a crew of eight Yemenis, they said.<\/p>\n
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{{A cache of weapons seized from a ship off the coast of Yemen had markings that indicate they came from Iran, a U.S. official said Tuesday.}} The markings on those weapons — which included surface-to-air missiles, potent explosives and rocket-propelled grenades — indicate they came from Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities, said the official, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-5492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5492"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=5492"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=5492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}