Two ships loaded with a large cache of weapons were confiscated U.S navy off the coast of Somalia amid political crisis in the Horn of Africa nation.
In a statement, U.S. navy announced on Tuesday that thousands of Kalashnikov-style rifles, light machine guns, heavy sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and crew-served weapons were by guided-missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill in the Indian Ocean last week.
The statement further said those aboard the vessels were released after the operation.
The navy said over the course of two days, the destroyer halted and searched the two ships for illicit cargo as part of the Navy’s routine maritime security patrol in the region.
A short video released by the Navy appeared to show U.S. sailors inspecting one of the intercepted dhows, a traditional ship that commonly sails the waters of the Persian Gulf region, as helicopters circled overhead.
Photographs of the contraband, a sample of the much larger quantity of arms, showed rows of what appeared to be new Kalashnikovs wrapped in plastic and piles of rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
#USSWinstonSChurchill Seizes Illicit Weapons from Two Dhows off Somalia, Feb. 12.
A joint team from #USNavy, @USArmy and @USCG onboard Churchill successfully execute this operation over the course of two days in the #IndianOcean.
DETAILS➡️ https://t.co/55dQLyoFPQ pic.twitter.com/aDSUG5vNaG
— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) February 16, 2021
