Iran Shipping Missiles to Midi Island? From Sudan?
Updated to include dates of Iranian warships on “piracy patrols” that landed in Yemen.
Possibly the mystery of the three recent incidents of exploding Yemeni fishing boats can be explained as Iranian missile shipments. The following article asserts Iran is shipping from an African country, likely Sudan, to Yemen. A Yemeni fishing boat also exploded in a Sudanese port and Yemen’s Midi Island is a new transit point for Sudanese refugees. Once there’s a smuggling route established for weapons, the boats often also transport refugees.
However this report is taken from a Yemeni government stooge newspaper, Akhbar al Youm, which once announced that Ayatollah Sistani and I (me Jane) wrote the 2005 Amnesty International report, so there you go… It could be spin but the part that seems truest is that Yemeni government officials facilitated the shipment’s entry to Yemen. Its equally likely the Iranian missiles, if they were off loaded in Yemen, were destined for al Qaeda as the Houthi rebels. The paper is owned by President Saleh’s half brother General Ali Mohsen al Ahmar who is in a perpetual power struggle with other elements of the family. General al Ahmar is tasked with leading the war against the Houthi rebels, and as odd as it seems, a shipload of Chinese weapons was recently imported (with forged documents from the Yemeni defense ministry), thought destined for the Houthi rebels. Its a very fractured government.
Adding some weight to the story is the January 09 incident of Israel bombing an Iranian weapons shipment headed for Gaza from The Sudan, with Yemen noted as a leg of the route. So if Iran is drop shipping weapons to Sudan, from there they could go either direction. Two Iranian warships did dock in Yemen during the time frame referenced (prior to August 09), approved by Yemen’s president. A third fleet docked in September 2009.
Yemen Tribune SANAA, 15 Oct — The pro-government daily newspaper, Akhbar al-Youm Thursday quoted ‘special’ sources as saying “Iran provided the Shiite insurgents in Yemen with advanced anti-armour missiles one month before the sixth round of war erupted between the Zaydi Shiite rebels and government forces in north Yemen.” “The information we obtained revealed the missiles were shipped through the sea via an Iranian vessel that began its journey from an African port,” said Akhbar al-Youm, adding “the Iranian missiles-laden vessel docked near Yemen’s Mydi port in Hajja where smaller boats transferred the missiles to Mydi. The missiles were then moved and stored in farms near Mydi and later were transferred to the rebels through Hajja and Hodeida.” “State officials were involved in the operation and arranged for the Iranian ship to enter Yemeni water territorial,” said Akhbar al-Youm, adding “security agencies arrested several of those officials and investigation is underway.” A few weeks ago, media reports talked about ‘mysterious’ blasts in Mydi port where boats were blown up and Akhbar al-Youm said “the blasts were the result of clashes between the coastguard and individuals aboard those boats who were delivering arms to the Shiite insurgents.”
I was concerned at the time the fishing boats were exploding about a coordinated maritime al Qaeda attack on the NATO fleet in the Gulf of Aden, that is the Yemeni signature, but this convoluted story is much more apt to be likely.
