The Royal Navy ship HMS Montrose at sea during Baltic operations in this photo taken June 15, 2014. Mass Communications Specialist 1st Class Adam S. Stapleton/US Navy/Released via REUTERS
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RIYADH, July 7 (Reuters) – Britain’s Royal Navy said on Thursday that one of its warships seized Iranian weapons, including surface-to-air missiles and cruise missile engines, from smugglers in international waters south of Iran in early this year.
A helicopter from the frigate HMS Montrose spotted motorboats moving away from the Iranian coast on January 28 and February 25 and dozens of packages containing the advanced weapons were seized, the Royal Navy said in a statement.
Iran’s foreign ministry rejected Britain’s claim, accusing it of complicity in the war on Yemen by selling weapons to the Saudi-led coalition.
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“By continuing to sell advanced weapons to the self-proclaimed military coalition against the defenseless people of Yemen, Britain is a partner in the war and aggression against Yemen and is in no position to make such baseless accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran and adopt a humanitarian guise,” the ministry said in a tweet. , quoting its spokesman Nasser Kanaani.
Therefore, he said, Britain “does not have the moral authority to make a claim against the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
The Royal Navy said: “The seized packages were returned to the UK for technical analysis which revealed that the consignment contained multiple rocket engines for Iran’s manufactured 351 surface attack cruise missiles and a batch of 358 surface-to-air missiles.”
It did not say where the missiles were aimed, but the 351 cruise missile with a range of 1,000 km (620 miles) is said to be frequently used by Yemen’s Houthi group to target Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The US Navy destroyer USS Gridley supported the seizure in February, the Royal Navy said. Both seizures took place while HMS Montrose was carrying out routine maritime security operations, it added.
“This action shows that we will not allow irresponsible and aggressive actions by Iran to go unchecked on land, sea and air,” US Central Command spokesman Col. Joseph Buccino said in a statement.
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have been at war with the Iran-aligned Houthis since 2015 in a conflict widely seen as a proxy war between the two Western-backed Gulf Arab states and Iran.
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Reporting by Jonathan Landey, Parisa Hafezi and Phil Stewart Writing by Aziz El Yacoubi Editing by Robert Birsell and Kim Coghill
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