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U.S. 5th Fleet ships seized approximately 1,400 AK-47 assault rifles and 226,600 rounds of ammunition from a stateless fishing vessel during a flag verification boarding in accordance with customary international law in the North Arabian Sea, Dec. 20. U.S. Navy patrol coastal ships USS Tempest (PC 2) and USS Typhoon (PC 5) found the weapons during a search conducted by embarked U.S. Coast Guard personnel. The illicit weapons and ammunition were later transported to guided-missile destroyer USS O’Kane (DDG 77) where they await final disposition. The stateless vessel was assessed to have originated in Iran and transited international waters along...

Jason Brodsky @JasonMBrodsky #BREAKING: U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet announces that the guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61) seized an illicit shipment of weapons from a stateless dhow in international water of the North Arabian Sea on May 6-7, 2021. VIDEO AT LINK......................... Navy 5th fleet makes major arms bust The U.S. Navy seizes thousands of weapons discovered aboard a vessel in the North Arabian Sea. “The cache of weapons included dozens of advanced Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles, thousands of Chinese Type 56 assault rifles, and hundreds of PKM machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades launchers. Other weapon components included...

A U.S. Navy warship which Iran claims to have chased away from a naval exercise in the Persian Gulf this week was at the time more than 7,000 miles away -- in its home port of Norfolk, Virginia. Iranian state media have been reporting that an Iranian Navy warship on Wednesday sent a warning to the USS Monterey, which Iran claims was sailing near its annual military exercises near the Strait of Hormuz, and that as a result of the warning the guided missile cruiser "left the region immediately." ...

The US is sending a special radar-equipped warship to the Mediterranean Sea next week, in the first step to develop a broad anti-ballistic missile system to protect Europe against a potential Iranian nuclear threat, the Pentagon said. The move marks the first of the Obama administration's four-phase plan to put land and sea-based radars and interceptors in several European locations during the next decade. Endorsed by Nato during a summit in Lisbon last year, the missile shield has triggered opposition from Russia and set off lengthy negotiations over the future expanded ability to shoot down ballistic missiles in the region....

ROME (Reuters) - U.S. navy officials boarded and searched a Tonga-registered merchant vessel in the eastern Mediterranean Wednesday in a hunt some media reports said was linked to finding members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. "At about 0400 GMT, USS Monterey conducted a compliant boarding of the merchant vessel Tara, formerly known as Christie, about 70 nautical miles south of Antalya, Turkey, in international waters," Commander Bob Ross, spokesman for the U.S. Sixth Fleet, told Reuters. The vessel's documentation appeared to be in order, no contraband was discovered and nothing was removed from the ship, Ross said, but...