Justice Department adds charges of supporting terrorism to Houthi suppliers

Several mariners whom U.S. Navy SEALs detained earlier this year were allegedly ferrying parts to Iran for its nuclear weapons program, the Justice Department said Thursday. Two SEALs lost their lives while intercepting the boat on Jan. 11, according to the U.S. Navy.

In February, the Justice Department charged four defendants with supplying weapons to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, as well as lying to U.S. Coast Guard officials. On Thursday, the Justice Department upgraded its indictment to add two more defendants as well as charges that included the provision of material support to terrorists and participating in nuclear weapons threats against the United States. It also added charges of conspiring to commit violence against maritime shipping with weapons of mass destruction, and witness tampering. The indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, according to the Justice Department.

What happened? U.S. Navy SEALs intercepted a smuggling vessel off the coast of Somalia on Jan. 11. The SEALs boarded the vessel and found Iranian-made missile parts like those Yemen’s Houthi rebels have used to attack merchant vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. More than a week of search and rescue operations followed the raid in which authorities searched for the missing SEALs.

Who are the defendants? Among the six defendants listed in the indictment are two brothers and Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps members, Shahab and Yunus Mir’kazei. The Pakistani captain of the smuggling vessel, Muhammad Pahlawan, is also listed. The other three were crew members on the smuggling vessel that the U.S. Navy intercepted. Shahab and Yunus Mir’kazei were not on the vessel when the SEALs intercepted it.

How did the weapons of mass destruction charges make their way into the indictment? Prosecutors allege that between August 2023 and his arrest in January, Pahlawan worked with the Mir’Kazei brothers to obtain parts for Iran’s weapons of mass destruction program. The three individuals all conspired together to transfer weapons of mass destruction to the Houthis, knowing they would be used against international shipping vessels.

Dig deeper: Read A.S. Ibrahim’s column in WORLD Opinions answering the question “Who are the Houthis?”