Desk:A Pakistani man seized final 12 months in a raid by US Navy SEALS was convicted Thursday of smuggling Iranian weapons to Yemen’s Huthi rebels.
Muhammad Pahlawan, 49, was certainly one of 4 males taken into US custody in the course of the navy’s January 2024 vessel seizure off the coast of Somalia, an operation which left two SEALs lifeless.
A federal jury in Virginia convicted Pahlawan of conspiring to supply materials help to terrorists, aiding Iran’s weapons of mass destruction program, conspiring to move explosives and different costs.
He’s to be sentenced on September 22 and faces a most of 20 years in jail for every of probably the most severe costs.
Based on court docket paperwork, Pahlawan labored with two Iranian brothers affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to smuggle weapons from Iran to the Huthis.
He was the captain of the vessel, a dhow, boarded by members of the US particular forces, in response to court docket paperwork.
Iranian-made ballistic missile and anti-ship cruise missile elements had been found on board that had been in step with weaponry utilized by Huthi rebels to assault service provider ships and US navy vessels.
The Huthis, who’ve managed massive swaths of Yemen for greater than a decade, started assaults on transport within the Purple Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The Huthis started concentrating on ships they claimed had been linked to Israel in assaults they stated had been in help of Palestinians in Gaza, the place Israeli forces are battling Hamas.
Two Navy SEALs went lacking in the course of the January 11, 2024 operation and had been declared lifeless after a 10-day search didn’t find them.