The Navy of USA has intercepted in the north of the Arabian Sea a shipment of thousands of weapons of war, many of them of Russian and Chinese manufacture, aboard a vessel without a flag, the Central Command of the Naval Forces of the North American country reported this Sunday.

From the Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain, Central Command said in a statement that the cache includes “dozens of Russian anti-tank guided missiles, thousands of Chinese Type 56 assault rifles and hundreds of PKM machine guns, rifles with telescopic sight and propelled grenade launchers”.

The seized material also included advanced optical sights, it added.

The weapons were found last Thursday by the missile cruiser USS Monterrey during a “routine verification in international waters” in a “dhow” (a traditional Arab sailboat used in commercial activities) without a flag, carried out “in accordance with customary international law,” according to the note.

After having passed all the illicit cargo to the US ship, an operation that lasted two days, the “dhow” was “evaluated for its navigability and, after being questioned, its crew was provided with food and water before being released.”

A video posted on the Quinta Loja Facebook account shows the thousands of weapons deployed on what appears to be the deck of the USS Monterrey.

The Central Command added that it is still investigating the origin and destination of the weapons.

Bahrain, a small island country in the Persian Gulf, is home to the headquarters of the United States Fifth Naval Fleet.

The base and the Navy personnel deployed there are key to supervising and maintaining security in a score of countries or some 2.5 million square miles, from the Persian Gulf to parts of the Indian Ocean, passing through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Oman, according to US data.

Categorized in:

Tagged in:

, , ,