Here's what nearly 10,000 rifles, 200 rocket launchers, and nearly 800,000 rounds of ammunition and other weapons seized by the US government looks like
Lloyd Lee
- The US government seized thousands of weapons in 2021 and 2023, court documents show.
- Feds said the weapons are part of an Iranian smuggling operation supporting rebel forces in Yemen.
In 2021 and 2023, the United States Naval Forces Central Command intercepted four vessels sailing in international waters in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
On those ships were thousands of weapons and nearly 800,000 rounds of ammunition the US government believes are part of an Iranian smuggling operation to support rebel forces in the Yemen Republic.
Federal prosecutors alleged in a seizure notice filed July 6 that an arm of the Iranian military — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the Trump administration designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 2019 — was smuggling the large cache of weapons and ammunition to support Houthi forces in Yemen.
CourtWatch first reported on the documents.
"There is no plausible way these weapons and munitions could have gotten onto the vessels between Iran and Yemen except that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has continued a pattern of smuggling letha aid to Houthi forces in Yemen," a Department of Defense official is cited in the notice.
For nearly a decade, Houthis, part of an Islamist movement, have been locked in a civil war with the Yemeni government after the group seized the country's capital, Sanaa, in 2014. Iran has widely been accused of supporting the rebel faction.
The US Navy intercepted four dhows — narrow ships that often operate without "transmitting an automatic identification signal," according to prosecutors — on May 6 and December 20 in 2021 and on January 6 and 15 this year. All four ships visited known IRGC ports and went through routes "consistent with previous IRGC smuggling operations," the DOD official said.
Altogether, US authorities seized nearly 10,000 various kinds of rifles, about 300 machine guns, 194 rocket launchers, more than 70 anti-tank guided missiles, and close to 800,000 rounds of ammunition, among other weapons.
Here's some of the photo evidence that was included in the government's seizure noticeA vessel, or dhow, named Al-Ghazal 1 was intercepted by the US Navy on December 20, 2021.
US authorities seized 1,438 Chinese-made Type-56 assault rifles and 220,00 rounds of ammunition from the Al-Ghazal 1.
On May 6, 2021, the US Navy encountered another vessel, Dhow X.
The government seized 2,556 Type 56 assault rifles, 35 Russian-made assault rifles, 194 Iranian-made rocket launchers, 183 general-purpose machine guns, 100 Chinese-made sniper rifles, 52 Iranian-made anti-materiel rifles, and 50 Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles.
Iranian-made rocket launchers that were seized from the Dhow X.
An example of the Iranian-made anti-materiel rifle, a weapon used against military equipment and structures, that was seized from the Dhow X.
An example of Chinese-made sniper rifles that were seized from the Dhow X.
On January 6, 2023, the US Navy intercepted Dhow Y. The vessel carried 1,918 Type 56 assault rifles and 198 Russian-made carbine rifles.
Less than two weeks later, on January 15, 2023, US authorities intercepted another vessel, Dhow Z, in the Gulf of Oman. The ship had 2,999 Type 56 assault rifles, 100 carbine rifles, 101 general-purpose machine guns, and 578,400 rounds of ammunition.
Rows of Chinese-made assault rifles are laid out for the photo op.
Iranian and Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles found on the Dhow X and Z.
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