Pakistani weapons smuggler convicted of transporting Iranian weapons to Houthis

Washington, Jun 6 (PTI) A Pakistani weapons smuggler has been convicted on charges related to smuggling Iranian-made advanced conventional weaponry destined for the Houthis in Yemen.

Muhammad Pahlawan, 49, was convicted by a federal jury of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists, providing material support and resources to Iran’s weapons of mass destruction programme, providing material support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s weapons of mass destruction programme and conspiring to and transporting explosive devices to the Houthis knowing those explosives would be used to cause harm, and threatening his crew.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in September and most statutes of conviction include a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, the US Department of Justice said.

According to court records and evidence presented at trial, on the night of January 11, 2024, US Central Command Navy forces, including Navy SEALs and members of the US Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team East, boarded an unflagged dhow, a small vessel, in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Somalia.

The US boarding team encountered 14 individual mariners on the vessel, including Pahlawan.

During a search of the dhow, the US boarding team located and seized Iranian-made advanced conventional weaponry, including ballistic missile components, anti-ship cruise missile components, and a warhead.

The type of weaponry found aboard the dhow is consistent with the weaponry used by the Houthi rebel forces during the time of the charged conspiracy against merchant ships and US military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel.

Pahlawan lied to the boarding team, instructed other crew members to lie, and eventually threatened the lives of his crew members and their families.

Pahlawan’s January 2024 trip was part of a larger operation. From August 2023 through January 2024, Pahlawan worked with two Iranian brothers, Shahab Mir’kazei (Shahab) and Yunus Mir’kazei (Yunus), affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to smuggle materials from Iran to the Houthi rebel forces in Yemen.

Pahlawan completed multiple smuggling voyages, coordinated and funded by Shahab and Yunus, by travelling with cargo from Iran to the coast of Somalia and transporting that cargo to another vessel for a nighttime ship-to-ship transfer.

Pahlawan worked with Shahab and Yunus to prepare the dhow for these smuggling voyages, received specific coordinates from them for the ship-to-ship transfers, and received multiple payments from them for his role in the smuggling operation. PTI YAS GSP GSP