Four seized on dhow brought to U.S. to face charges

Document filed in court shows this image of dhow prior to its sinking

Four foreign nationals aboard the dhow suspected of smuggling Houthi weapons that was interdicted by U.S. forces on January 11 have been charged in a criminal complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia. Ten others have been detained as material witnesses.

Two Navy SEALs lost their lives in the incident, with CENTCOM subsequently releasing photographs of weaponry found aboard the dhow.

Defendant Muhammad Pahlawan is charged with: (1) intentionally and unlawfully transporting on board the dhow a warhead, knowing the warhead would be used by the Houthi rebel forces against commercial and naval vessels in the Red Sea and surrounding waters; and (2) providing materially false information to U.S. Coast Guard officers during the boarding of the dhow regarding the vessel’s crew and cargo. Co-defendants Mohammad Mazhar, Ghufran Ullah, and Izhar Muhammad were also charged with providing materially false information to U.S. Coast Guard officers during the boarding of the dhow regarding the vessel’s crew and/or cargo.

Pahlawan faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if convicted of unlawfully transporting a warhead, and all four defendants face a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted of the false statements offense.

“Today’s complaint sends a message that acting as a proxy for the IRGC in an effort to bring harm to U.S. persons overseas will not be tolerated by the U.S. Government,” said Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office. “Transporting explosive materials intended to be used to threaten and cause harm is yet another example of the IRGC’s disruptive and hostile actions. The FBI and our U.S. Government partners will continue to disrupt efforts by hostile foreign governments seeking to intimidate and cause harm through violence.”

According to court records, on the night of Jan. 11, U.S. Central Command Navy forces operating from the USS Lewis B. Puller, including Navy SEALs and members of the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team East, boarded an unflagged dhow in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Somalia. The U.S. boarding team encountered 14 individual mariners on the vessel.

During a search of the dhow, the U.S. boarding team allegedly located and seized what is believed to be Iranian-made advanced conventional weaponry. According to court records, preliminary analysis of the advanced conventional weaponry indicates that it includes critical components for medium range ballistic missiles (MRBM) and anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), to include a warhead and propulsion and guidance components. The type of weaponry found aboard the dhow is allegedly consistent with the weaponry used by the Houthi rebel forces in recent attacks on merchant ships and U.S. military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

According to court records, the Navy brought the fourteen mariners aboard the USS Lewis B. Puller after determining the dhow was unsafe and unseaworthy [According to CENTCOM, the dhow was deemed unsafe and sunk by U.S. Navy forces]. On Feb. 11, the United States obtained arrest warrants for four of the mariners who were aboard the dhow — specifically, defendants Muhammad Pahlawan, Mohammad Mazhar, Ghufran Ullah, and Izhar Muhammad. Pakistani identification cards allegedly were found on the dhow for each of the four defendants. The United States also obtained ten material witness warrants for the remaining individuals aboard the vessel.

The defendants and material witnesses were transferred from the USS Lewis B. Puller to the Eastern District of Virginia. The four defendants and eight of the 10 material witnesses made their initial appearances before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Richmond yesterday.

There is much more detail of what happened during the seizure of the dhow in a court document released by the Department of Justice. Dowload it HERE