US Navy Seizes AK-47s, Grenade Launchers, Machine Guns From Yemen-bound Ship

The US Navy has seized a weapon shipment including 1,500 Kalashnikov assault rifles, 200 rocket propelled grenade launchers and 21 .50-caliber machine guns likely bound to Yemen in the Arabian Sea from Iran.

The USS Sirocco intercepted and seized the shipment of weapons hidden aboard a small dhow, the US Navy said in a statement Monday.

It said those aboard the dhow were released after sailors confiscated the arms.

Earlier this month, a French Naval ship busted huge consignments of weapons that include hundreds of AK-47 assault rifles and anti-tank weapons were seized from a dhow headed for Somalia.

The seizure came three weeks after the Royal Australian Navy discovered a haul of 1989 AK-47 automatic assault rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 49 PKM general purpose machineguns, 39 PKM spare barrels and twenty 60 mm mortar tubes from a small fishing vessel that was also headed to Somalia.