Asharq al-Awsat:

By Mohammed Nasser

Confessions by detained sailors have revealed the smuggling routes used by the Houthi militants in Yemen to smuggle weapons from Iran.

Yemeni forces arrested in July seven people on board a ship they intercepted in the Red Sea. The sailors revealed the details of a significant smuggling network run by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) that ran routes through Beirut, Damascus, Somalia and Djibouti to reach the Houthi-held ports of Hodeidah.

The confessions were aired by al-Joumhouriya television that is run by the Yemeni national resistance that is based on the western Yemeni coast.

Four sailors confessed to smuggling arms shipments from Iran’s Bandar Abbas port to Hodeidah. They have been identified as Amer Masawa, Ali Qassir, Issa Qassir and Abdullah Afifi.

Masawa revealed that a Houthi official in Hodeidah had tasked him back in 2023 to return a ship from Iran to Yemen. Masawa headed to Houthi-held Sanaa with others where they were granted passports. From there, they boarded a Yemenia Airways flight to the Jordanian capital Amman.

From there, they continued on to the Lebanese capital Beirut where a man in his 60s escorted them to an apartment that was ready to receive them. They remained there for three days before being transported by car to the Syrian capital Damascus and from there they flew to Tehran, Iran.

In Tehran, a man escorted the travelers to a Houthi camp run by leading Houthi member Mohammed al-Talebi. Yemeni authorities identify him as a Houthi representative of the smuggling network from Iran.

After ten days in Tehran, they were flown to Bandar Abbas city where they stayed in a villa owned by Talebi who explained to them their mission. Soon after, they were joined by ten Somali sailors.

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