A Saudi Arabia-led military coalition fighting Houthis in Yemen said Wednesday that it had stopped an Iranian boat carrying arms to the war-torn country, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The boat carried 14 Iranians and was laden with missile launchers and anti-tank weapons, the coalition said in a statement, including firing guiding systems.
It was seized around 1pm local time Saturday, Sept. 26 in the Arabian Sea, about 150 miles southeast of the Omani port of Salalah. Oman shares a border with Yemen.
The coalition said the boat is registered under the name Jan Mohammed Hut, an Iranian citizen. The vessel had a license from Iranian authorities to fish in those waters, the coalition said.
Saudi Arabia has been fighting Iran-supported Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen since March, in a bid to restore exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power.
Politically Iran supports the Houthis, but denies supplying them with weapons.
There was no immediate response on Wednesday from Iran.
Saturday’s incident is the latest seizure of boats allegedly carrying Iranian arms bound for Yemen.
The U.S. Navy and Yemeni coast guard detained a vessel called the Jihan as it sailed from Iran into Yemeni territorial waters in 2013, according to a United Nations report. The boat was loaded with rockets, plastic explosives and other munitions a U.N. panel traced back to Iran.
It was unclear whether the arms were bound for Yemen or for the Houthis, although the ship’s crew was Yemeni and the shipment was arranged by a Yemeni businessman, the U.N. panel said.
Yemeni forces captured another weapons-laden boat called the Jihan 2 in the narrow Bab el-Mandab Strait later in 2013, state media said at the time.
The two countries are engaged in a proxy war in neighboring Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of mostly Sunni Arab states in an effort to unseat Shiite Iran-supported Houthi rebels.
