WASHINGTON — The Norfolk-based guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy is the second American Navy warship to find a large stockpile of weapons in the high seas.
Earlier this month a crew from the Normandy boarded a small vessel known as a dhow in the Arabian Sea and seized advanced weaponry including Iranian-manufactured 150 anti-tank guided missiles.
They also captured three Iranian surface-to-air missiles, Iranian thermal scopes, and Iranian parts for unmanned systems, along with other advanced parts and munitions.
It so happens that it was the sixth shipment of similar weapons believed to be on the way to Yemen from Iran seized by the U.S. military in the last five years, including a very similar cache seized in November by sailors aboard the Norfolk-based guided-missile destroyer USS Forrest Sherman.
"The United States assesses with high confidence that the weapons seized by the USS Forrest Sherman in November and the weapons seized by the Normandy in February were manufactured in Iran and were being illicitly being smuggled to the Houthis in Yemen, in contradiction to numerous UN security council resolutions," said U.S. Central spokesman Captain Bill Urban.
He said a pattern is clear, and so is the culprit.
"You know, there's not a plausible explanation on how these weapons got in a vessel in Yemen without the sanction of the Iranian government," he said.
The Normandy and Forrest Sherman are part of the Norfolk-based USS Harry S. Truman's Carrier Strike Group 8 currently operating in the North Arabian Sea.