DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based fifth Fleet is beginning to provide rewards for information that might assist sailors intercept weapons, medication and different illicit shipments throughout the area amid tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran’s arming of Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
While avoiding immediately mentioning Iran, the fifth Fleet’s resolution to provide cash and different items for actionable intelligence within the Persian Gulf and different strategic waterways could improve strain on the move of weapons to the Houthis as a shaky cease-fire nonetheless holds in Yemen.
Already, the Houthis have threatened a new allied task force organized by the 5th Fleet in the Red Sea, although there’s been no assault by the Iranian-backed forces on the Navy within the time since.
Meanwhile, the fifth Fleet says it and its companions seized $500 million in medication alone in 2021 — greater than the 4 prior years mixed. The fifth Fleet additionally intercepted 9,000 weapons in the identical interval, 3 times the quantity seized in 2020.
“Any destabilizing activity has our attention,” Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a fifth Fleet spokesperson, instructed The Associated Press. “Definitely we have seen in the last year skyrocketing success in seizing both illegal narcotics and illicit weapons. This represents another step in our effort to enhance regional maritime security.”
The fifth Fleet’s new initiative launches on Tuesday via the Department of Defense Rewards Program, which noticed troops provide cash and items for tips on the battlefields in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere after al-Qaida launched the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults. Since floor combating has largely halted throughout the area, the fifth Fleet determined to attempt to use this system because it patrols the waterways of the Middle East.
Hawkins stated operators fluent in Arabic, English and Farsi would man a hotline, whereas the Navy also would take tips additionally online, in Dari and Pashto. Payouts will be as excessive as $100,000 or the equal in automobiles, boats or meals for tips that additionally embrace information on deliberate assaults concentrating on Americans, Hawkins stated.
It’s unclear if the fifth Fleet’s uptick in seizures represents a return to delivery after the coronavirus pandemic or a rise general within the variety of illicit shipments within the area. Traffickers sometimes use stateless dhows, conventional wood crusing craft widespread within the Mideast, to transport medication and weapons.
One vacation spot for weapons seems to be Yemen. The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 and compelled the internationally acknowledged authorities into exile. A Saudi-led coalition armed with U.S. weaponry and intelligence entered the warfare on the facet of Yemen’s exiled authorities in March 2015. Years of inconclusive combating has pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine. A truce that began around the holy Muslim month of Ramadan appears for now to still be holding.
Despite a United Nations Security Council arms embargo on Yemen, Iran long has been transferring rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and other weaponry to the Houthis. Though Iran denies arming the Houthis, unbiased consultants, Western nations and U.N. consultants have traced parts again to Iran.
Asked about whether or not new seizures may improve tensions with Iran, Hawkins listed the weapons and medicines the Navy hoped to intercept underneath this system.
“That’s what we’re after,” the commander stated. “That’s not in the interest of regional stability and security.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations didn’t reply to a request for remark. The U.S. Navy and Iran continue to have tense encounters in the Strait of Hormuz, the slender mouth of the Persian Gulf via which a fifth of all oil traded passes.
The rewards program marks the newest initiative underneath fifth Fleet Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, who also launched a drone task force last year amid tensions with Iran.
Cooper’s different effort, the Red Sea job pressure, has drawn criticism from the Houthis prior to now. The insurgent group, which has repeatedly denied being armed by Iran, didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the brand new Navy program.
However, Ali al-Qahom, a Houthi official, tweeted final week that the rebels are monitoring elevated U.S. exercise within the Red Sea and Persian Gulf waters.
“Because of this, defense and confrontation options are open,” he stated. “They and their diabolical projects have no place” within the area.
