Today, Wednesday, the joint forces on the West Coast revealed an arms smuggling cell from Iran to the terrorist Houthi militia, linked to Houthi leaders running maritime smuggling operations using the three ports of Hodeidah: “Hodeidah Port, Ras Issa, and Al-Salif.”
The cell includes six members, all from Hodeidah Governorate, and they are: Ibrahim Hassan Zuhair Raziq - from the Abu Zahr area of Al-Khawkhah District - Hayel Jalil Abdullah Ahmed Hassanein, Sufyan Awad Ahmed Abdul-Wadud, Muhammad Shu’i Ahmed Hadidi, and Omar Muhammad Abdo Qasim Al-Najjar - from People of Al-Lahiya District.
The military media in the joint forces distributed a video containing the confessions of the involved elements, who were arrested, in a new achievement added to the achievements of the General Intelligence Division in the National Resistance.
The first (Ibrahim Raziq) admitted to his participation in smuggling an Iranian arms shipment from off the coast of Al-Mahra to the shores of Somalia, and there another cell received it and transported it to Hodeidah.
He added that he and others were assigned to transport a second shipment from the same place and in the same way, but they were unable to reach it. The Coast Guard intercepted them off Al-Mahra before they were released and returned to their country.
He added that he moved again to the city of Hodeidah in coordination with the Houthi militia, and participated with a group in transporting a drug shipment from the port of Saleef to Sudan, and upon his return to his country in Al-Khokha, he was arrested.
Hael Jalil admitted to his participation in two operations to smuggle oil derivatives for the Houthis from Somalia to Hodeidah, before he was assigned with the four others to smuggle weapons from the coast of Somalia to Hodeidah via a bot owned by a person called Izz al-Din Muhammad Abdo Qasim al-Najjar, in partnership with a Houthi leader called Taher Khater. He is primarily responsible for the bot and its movements.
Cell member Hayel Jalil also revealed that his brother participated in smuggling a shipment of weapons from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas with a group of others, and agreed that he would receive an amount of 28 thousand Saudi riyals, but the Houthi militia reneged and only gave him 8 thousand.
The confessions of Hayel Jalil and the rest of the cell members included participation in two unsuccessful operations to smuggle weapons from the shores of Somalia, where they arrived while another cell had smuggled the two shipments to Hodeidah.
Their confessions also included that the third time they were assigned to smuggle a shipment directly from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, but the Coast Guard in the Red Sea sector intercepted them and they were arrested.