Iran's smuggled weapons to the Houthis appear in the market in Sana'a
English - Tuesday 21 June 2022 الساعة 06:01 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, private:
Iranian-made light weapons appeared in the arms market in Sanaa, which is under the control of the terrorist Houthi militia, amid an increase in arms smuggling from Iran to Yemen.
Local sources told NewsYemen that the arms market in Sanaa has been flooded in recent months with Iranian-made weapons, including assault rifles, light automatic weapons and snipers, in addition to thermal scopes.
The sources added, that arms dealers are offering Iranian parts for sale with the Houthi flag, which indicates the intensity of arms shipments supplied by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards through more than one smuggling line, including the Sultanate of Oman and the coasts of the city of Hodeidah, in western Yemen.
Reports confirm that Iran is using the Houthi-controlled areas in northern Yemen as a station for the transfer of weapons towards the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia.
In connection with the publication, "Joshua Koontz", an expert at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, on his account on "Twitter", pictures of Iranian-made weapons presented by Yemeni arms sellers in Sana'a.
Among those Iranian weapons were one KLF (Type-56-1 version) and one KLF (Type 56-1 version) that were offered for sale at a price of about $750.
Koontz also published photos showing Houthi fighters carrying North Korean LMG 73 snipers (provided by Iran) in a march for them in May 2017 in Amran, and other photos of a weapon that is likely to be a DIO TK9 Tondar SMG (an Iranian version of the MP5A3) currently on sale in Sana'a at a price of 2666 dollars.
On June 12, Houthi media showed a video clip showing a Houthi element from Hajjah Governorate (northwest of Yemen) carrying a possible Iranian KLF weapon (version Type-56-1).
Earlier, an international organization concerned with monitoring organized crime warned that Iranian weapons and ammunition provided to the Houthi militias in Yemen are also making their way to the black market in East Africa.
In a recent lengthy report, the Global Initiative to Combat Transnational Organized Crime said that it had obtained reliable evidence indicating not only that Iran is providing weapons to the Houthi rebels, but that criminal networks are smuggling these weapons towards the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia.
The spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet, Timothy Hawkins, announced the confiscation of thousands of Iranian weapons on the way to Yemen, during the period between the beginning of the year 2021 until now, noting that the confiscations include 9,000 weapons, which is 3 times greater than what was seized in the year 2020.
He pointed out that the last announced shipment was seized in December of last year, when America announced at the time that Iranian weapons were on their way to the Houthis.
At the time, the shipments included individual weapons of war, ammunition for machine guns, and more advanced weapons such as ballistic missile parts, cross-border missile parts and anti-armor missiles.
