Thoma Yosip
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16,000 Turkish pistols bound for Yemen found in Dubai
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Saithan
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This is all I know:
Dubai police said Thursday that they have seized thousands of small arms being smuggled in a sea cargo shipment which originated in Turkey and was bound for Yemen.
Authorities said the guns were headed to Yemen’s restive Saada region, where Shiite rebels have been fighting government forces for many years. Dubai’s government described the find as the largest arms shipment of its kind discovered in the region.
Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai’s police chief, said authorities found the 16,000 Turkish-made pistols in a red cargo shipping container, hidden behind boxes of furniture wrapped in plastic. The weapons were discovered in a Dubai warehouse about two weeks ago, he told reporters.
Officials at the Foreign Ministry headquarters in Ankara told Today’s Zaman as of Thursday afternoon that “no official information regarding the issue was conveyed by Dubai to Ankara.”
Another government official in Ankara pointed out that there was a lot of speculation and not enough clear information on the issue within the Dubai police’s public remarks in press reports.
Dubai police showed photos and a video of thousands of metallic black, silver and gold colored handguns laid out on a concrete parking lot.
The shipment originated in Turkey and passed through an Egyptian port before reaching Dubai’s port of Jebel Ali, police said. They added that the smugglers had intended to transport the weapons through another Gulf country instead of Dubai but changed their plans to secure a more convenient shipping route. Tamim declined to name the other Gulf country meant to serve as a transport point, but said it wasn’t Saudi Arabia. He said a number of suspects have been arrested with help from the countries involved. Tamim said six people were arrested in the operation, five from Arab countries and one from Turkey.
Jebel Ali is by far the busiest port in the Middle East. It and another Dubai dock serve as major transshipment hubs for cargo traveling between Asia, Europe, Africa and the rest of the Middle East.
Yemen has been embroiled in a month of protests seeking to ouster President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled for 32 years. A government crackdown on the opposition has killed dozens.
It was unclear who ordered the shipment. Tamim said it was unlikely the weapons were destined for the Yemeni government because they were counterfeit knockoffs of legitimate brands.
He speculated that they might have been bound for Hawthi rebels, a group of Shiite tribesmen who have waged an on-and-off struggle against the government for the last six years. But they also could have been ordered by middlemen who planned to sell them individually, he said, noting that the unrest ensures that arms dealers have plenty of customers.
In Yemen, protesters have been trying for weeks to end Saleh’s 32-year rule. Yemen, which sits on a major shipping lane and borders oil giant Saudi Arabia, is the second most heavily armed country in the world in per capita terms. Around half its 23 million people own a gun. The operation in Dubai came days after Turkish officials confiscated materials breeching UN sanctions on Iran from an Iranian cargo plane. Last Tuesday another plane was similarly forced to land in Diyarbakır but departed the following day after a search squad trained in chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear cargo found nothing illegal.
The UN nuclear watchdog is looking into allegations of covert atomic activity in Syria. Iran and Syria, who are close allies, deny harboring any nuclear weapons ambitions.
source: UAE says seized Turkey-originated arms bound for Yemen
Dubai police said Thursday that they have seized thousands of small arms being smuggled in a sea cargo shipment which originated in Turkey and was bound for Yemen.
Authorities said the guns were headed to Yemen’s restive Saada region, where Shiite rebels have been fighting government forces for many years. Dubai’s government described the find as the largest arms shipment of its kind discovered in the region.
Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai’s police chief, said authorities found the 16,000 Turkish-made pistols in a red cargo shipping container, hidden behind boxes of furniture wrapped in plastic. The weapons were discovered in a Dubai warehouse about two weeks ago, he told reporters.
Officials at the Foreign Ministry headquarters in Ankara told Today’s Zaman as of Thursday afternoon that “no official information regarding the issue was conveyed by Dubai to Ankara.”
Another government official in Ankara pointed out that there was a lot of speculation and not enough clear information on the issue within the Dubai police’s public remarks in press reports.
Dubai police showed photos and a video of thousands of metallic black, silver and gold colored handguns laid out on a concrete parking lot.
The shipment originated in Turkey and passed through an Egyptian port before reaching Dubai’s port of Jebel Ali, police said. They added that the smugglers had intended to transport the weapons through another Gulf country instead of Dubai but changed their plans to secure a more convenient shipping route. Tamim declined to name the other Gulf country meant to serve as a transport point, but said it wasn’t Saudi Arabia. He said a number of suspects have been arrested with help from the countries involved. Tamim said six people were arrested in the operation, five from Arab countries and one from Turkey.
Jebel Ali is by far the busiest port in the Middle East. It and another Dubai dock serve as major transshipment hubs for cargo traveling between Asia, Europe, Africa and the rest of the Middle East.
Yemen has been embroiled in a month of protests seeking to ouster President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled for 32 years. A government crackdown on the opposition has killed dozens.
It was unclear who ordered the shipment. Tamim said it was unlikely the weapons were destined for the Yemeni government because they were counterfeit knockoffs of legitimate brands.
He speculated that they might have been bound for Hawthi rebels, a group of Shiite tribesmen who have waged an on-and-off struggle against the government for the last six years. But they also could have been ordered by middlemen who planned to sell them individually, he said, noting that the unrest ensures that arms dealers have plenty of customers.
In Yemen, protesters have been trying for weeks to end Saleh’s 32-year rule. Yemen, which sits on a major shipping lane and borders oil giant Saudi Arabia, is the second most heavily armed country in the world in per capita terms. Around half its 23 million people own a gun. The operation in Dubai came days after Turkish officials confiscated materials breeching UN sanctions on Iran from an Iranian cargo plane. Last Tuesday another plane was similarly forced to land in Diyarbakır but departed the following day after a search squad trained in chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear cargo found nothing illegal.
The UN nuclear watchdog is looking into allegations of covert atomic activity in Syria. Iran and Syria, who are close allies, deny harboring any nuclear weapons ambitions.
source: UAE says seized Turkey-originated arms bound for Yemen
