USCENTCOM via AP
- Two Navy SEALs went missing during an operation off the coast of Somalia last Thursday.
- They were helping seize Iranian weapons being sent to the Houthis in Yemen, CENTCOM said.
- The operation was part of US efforts to choke off Iran's weapon smuggling to its allies.
The two Navy SEALs who went missing off the coast of Somalia last week were trying to stop Iranian missile parts from reaching the Houthis in Yemen, according to the US Central Command.
The pair were helping seize Iranian warheads for missiles being sent to Yemen when they were lost at sea, CENTCOM said in a statement on Tuesday. Search-and-rescue efforts were ongoing, a defense official told Business Insider on Wednesday morning.
The intercepted vessel was carrying propulsion, guidance, and warheads for medium-range ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as air defense-associated components, it said.
General Michael Erik Kurilla, CENTCOM's commander, said that the vessel and its contents were a "clear" indication that "Iran continues shipment of advanced lethal aid to the Houthis." He vowed to "continue to work with regional and international partners to expose and interdict these efforts."
That's easier said than done, however.
Mark Cancian, a retired US Marine Corps colonel who is now a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the latest raid shows the US is still trying to shut down the Iranian resupply of the Houthis.
"This represents a new level of US intervention," he told Business Insider, while also pointing out that, as far as we know, it is only happening at sea.
The US Navy and its allies have made attempts to shut down this flow of weapons in the past.
In February 2023, CENTCOM said it had supported French special forces during a January raid in the Gulf of Oman that took place along traditional smuggling routes between Iran and Yemen.
They captured over 3,000 assault rifles, 578,000 rounds of ammunition, and 23 advanced anti-tank guided missiles, it said.
The raid was one of four "illicit cargo interdictions" carried out in a matter of months that resulted in the seizure of more than 5,000 weapons and 1.6 million rounds of ammunition bound for Yemen, CENTCOM said at the time.
But Richard Kouyoumdjian Inglis, a Lieutenant Commander in the Chilean Naval Reserve, says these sorts of operations will not deter Iran from continuing its arms trade across the region.
"One of the main problems with the Red Sea in the Gulf of Aden is the type of states that surround them — Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, and Sudan," Inglis told BI.
"As long as these countries in that part of the world are failed states, they can be subject to the interests of others," he said, pointing specifically to Iran.
The Iranian-backed Houthis have run parts of Yemen since 2014, while the Islamic State's branch in Somalia has seized towns and disrupted maritime trade in the Gulf of Aden.
Ethiopia, meanwhile, is beset by civil war, and Sudan has seen intense clashes between its military and a paramilitary group.
Iran has intensified economic and trade ties with each of these countries over the past decade, allowing it to expand its influence around the Red Sea, according to the nonprofit Middle East Institute.
The result, Inglis said, is that Iran, as well as its proxies, can use these countries to disrupt maritime global trade, supply its proxies with weapons, and affect Israel.
According to CENTCOM, last week's operation was the first seizure of Iranian-supplied advanced conventional weapons to the Houthis "since the beginning of Houthi attacks against merchant ships in November 2023."
Inglis predicts there will now be other such operations, with the US Navy targeting more vessels smuggling weapons.
But, he said, "Iran will continue sending weapons to them in the same way that the Soviet Union did to Cuba in the 1960s."
"You had operations in the past; you'll continue to have operations in the future," he added.