The crew of a U.S. Navy ship stopped a massive Iranian arms shipment dead in its tracks, seizing thousands of weapons, AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers in the Arabian Sea, the Pentagon announced Monday.
The seizure, which unfolded on March 28, was the third of its kind in recent weeks, military officials say. Iran has been supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen in their proxy war against a Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States. Like Iran, the Houthis are a Shia-led group.
The arms shipment appears to mark the latest provocative action taken by the Islamic republic. On Friday, President Obama said Iran was obeying the "letter" of its landmark nuclear agreement with the West, but not the "spirit" of it.
The Navy said the shipment included 1,500 AK-47s, 200 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 21 .50-caliber machine guns.
After the U.S. seized the weapons stash from the dhow, a traditional sailing vessel, officials let the crew go. A U.S. official told Fox News current rules do not allow the U.S. Navy or other western naval forces to seize the crew in addition to illicit cargo. "You have to find a country willing to prosecute," the official said.
A defense official reached by Fox News would not reveal the nationality of the dhow's crew.
In January, Iran captured 10 U.S. Navy sailors in the Persian Gulf, on the same day President Obama delivered his State of the Union address. Iran released the sailors one day later.
Last year, naval forces from Iran's Revolutionary Guard seized a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship and held it for weeks to settle a business dispute. Iranian vessels later surrounded a U.S.-flagged vessel but did not detain it.
Soon afterwards, U.S. warships escorted all U.S. and British flagged cargo ships and tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a key Mideast oil passage.
In late December, Iran's military fired rockets near the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, a move the U.S. called "unnecessarily provocative and unsafe."
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