Arab coalition helicopters and naval units intercepted two boats off the port of Salif, north of the Hudaydah governorate in the Red Sea and forced them to stop for inspection and found arms, ammunition and modern telecommunications equipment on board. This comes two days after the coalition's air force destroyed two boats at the entrance of the Salif port for smuggling weapons to Houthi militias. According to the media center of the popular resistance in the Hudaydah governorate, the smugglers who were on the two boats were interrogated and confessed that they were on their way from Iranian regional waters to the Yemeni Salif port to deliver the load to the Houthis. Surveillance and investigative operations revealed that militias are using a number of islands, such as Zagar and Hanish, to smuggle arms and equipment with the help of Iran. After the coalition forces imposed their control on these two islands earlier this year, the militias used the Kamaran island, which is close to the Hudaydah port and which is the only inhabited island. Iranian smuggling ships either unload their cargo in these islands or in militias' boats in the sea to later be transferred to western shores in Yemen. A number of western reports revealed that arms have been smuggled through the area of Zabab, 30 kilometers north of Bab al-Mandeb, and the Mocha port, 60 kilometers north of Bab Al-Mandeb and west of the Taiz governorate. Arms have also been smuggled through Hudaydah such as through al-Khoukha which is 90 kilometers north of Bab of al-Mandeb and through the major Hudaydah port. And most recently, smuggling operations were detected through al-Salif port which is 70 kilometers north of the Hudaydah port. According to local and international reports, smuggling operations included thermal rockets, ammunition, spare parts and huge missiles that were unloaded from Iranian ships in the middle of the sea in the Gulf of Aden on medium-sized boats which most of the time unloaded in the Mocha and Hudaydah ports despite the surveillance imposed by coalition forces on the western shores of Yemen. — Al Arabiya English
