NCRI – An Iranian ship laden with arms seized by Yemeni authorities in January may also have been bound for Somalia, according to a confidential UN report seen by Reuters on Monday.
Yemeni forces intercepted the ship, the Jihan 1, off Yemen’s coast on January 23. US and Yemeni officials said it was carrying a large cache of weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, being smuggled by the Iranian regime for insurgents in Yemen.
The confidential UN report, by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, cited Yemeni officials as saying that it was possible diesel carried aboard the ship could have been intended for shipment to Somalia.
The report did not explicitly say that weapons on the ship were headed for Somalia, but one UN Security Council diplomat said that if it was true that the diesel was intended for Somalia, it could not be ruled out that other items on the ship, including weapons, might also have been intended for there.
A Western diplomat said that the fact that there were 16,716 blocks of C4 explosive on the Jihan 1 suggested a potential connection between the Iranian regime and Al-Shabaab in Somalia, as Huthi rebels, unlike Al-Shabaab, were not known to use C4, Reuters reported.
