Intercepted shipment from Iran US supplies Ukraine with confiscated ammunition
October 4, 2023, 8:09 pm Listen to the article
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Last year, the US said it detained a ship in the Gulf of Oman. On board they find a shipment of ammunition that Iran wanted to send to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The balls are confiscated. Now the US government is sending them to the Ukrainian military.
The United States handed over to Ukraine more than a million rounds of confiscated ammunition that Iran planned to send to Houthi rebels in Yemen. The 1.1 million rounds of 7.62mm rifle ammunition were delivered to the Ukrainian military on Monday, the US Army said on Wednesday.
The ammunition reportedly came from a ship that was stopped by a US warship in the Gulf of Oman last December. According to the US military command Centcom, the munitions came from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and were intended to be delivered to Houthi rebels in civil war-torn Yemen, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution. The US confiscated the ammunition and later declared it its property.
Tehran-backed rebels seized the capital Sanaa in 2014. The following year, Saudi Arabia mobilized a military coalition to support the Yemeni government. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the year-long conflict and the humanitarian situation in the country is catastrophic. The delivery of the confiscated ammunition to Ukraine comes at an extremely difficult political time: over the weekend, the US Congress approved an interim budget to avoid a budget freeze that does not include any new aid to Ukraine.
US House of Representatives paralyzed
US President Joe Biden wants Congress to approve billions in new aid to Kiev in a separate text. However, the US House of Representatives was plunged into chaos on Tuesday due to the vote by its speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and the chamber of Congress has been paralyzed until further notice.
It is unclear if and when new aid to Ukraine could be approved in Congress. US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby warned on Tuesday that with the funds approved so far by Congress, US military aid to Ukraine could only continue for “a few months”. The US is Ukraine’s main supporter in the war against Russia. The political blockade in Washington is therefore viewed with great concern by Western allies.
More information about the war of aggression against Ukraine can be found here