UK Navy seizes cargo of contraband weapons

Royal Navy frigate HMS Lancaster intercepted a contraband cargo carrying the speedboat in international waters near Iran.

This was reported by the press service of the Royal Navy of Great Britain.

The interception took place on February 23 in the Gulf of Oman, a small area between Oman and Iran, on a route historically used to illegally transport weapons to Yemen.

During the interception, the Royal Marines of 42 Commando seized on board the ship more than 5,000 small arms, 1.6 million rounds, 30 Iranian copies of Russian 9M133 Kornet anti-tank guided missiles, components for intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and fuel used to make rocket-propelled grenades.

Smugglers tried to avoid the pursuit of a patrol helicopter moving towards Iranian territorial waters. There, Iran-backed Houthi rebels wage a decades-long civil war against Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition.

The cutter ignored orders to stop, was intercepted by a British frigate before the crew could escape.

The Western military regularly carries out naval raids in an attempt to prevent the flow of smuggled weapons, ammunition, and explosives from Iran to the Houthis, which violate the UN arms embargo. While those interceptions have been going on for years, there have been a few in the last few weeks alone.

“This is the seventh illegal weapon or drug interdiction in the last three months and yet another example of Iran’s increasing malign maritime activity across the region,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of NAVCENT, US 5th Fleet, and Combined Maritime Forces, said in a statement.

After the seizure of a cargo of weapons and components for their manufacture, the United Kingdom can flood it into the sea, or send it ashore for destruction.

However, there is an alternative option to dispose of intercepted weapons. So, the United States recently considered sending captured Iranian weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, which were previously intercepted on the way to Yemen.

Defense officials plan to send more than 5,000 assault rifles, 1.6 million small arms rounds, as well as a small number of anti-tank missiles and more than 7,000 non-contact fuzes seized in recent months from Iranian smugglers.

The plan to send confiscated weapons is considered an “unusual step” to open a new source of defense support for Ukraine.