Last month a US special operations team boarded a ship in the Indian Ocean and seized military-related articles headed to Iran from China, a rare interdiction operation at sea aimed at blocking Tehran from rebuilding its military arsenal.
The ship was several hundred miles off the coast of Sri Lanka when the operatives boarded it and confiscated the cargo before letting the vessel proceed, the officials said. The US had been tracking the shipment.
The previously undisclosed raid was part of a Pentagon effort to disrupt the Islamic Republic’s clandestine military procurement after Israel and the US inflicted heavy damage on its nuclear and missile facilities during a 12-day conflict in June.
It was the first time in recent years that the US military is known to have intercepted cargo with Chinese origins on its way to Iran. The name of the ship and its owner couldn’t be determined.
The operation occurred weeks before the US seized a sanctioned oil tanker on Wednesday off the coast of Venezuela that had been used to transport oil from Venezuela to Iran. It underscored the Trump administration’s use of aggressive maritime tactics against adversaries that the US has rarely used in the recent past.
The cargo consisted of components potentially useful for Iran’s conventional weapons, one official said, adding that the shipment was destroyed. The seized components were dual-use items, with both civilian and military applications.
The US had gathered intelligence suggesting the cargo was going to Iranian companies that specialize in procuring components for its missile program.
The operation included special operations forces as well as conventional forces.
The rare confiscation of military-related technologies bound for Iran comes as the United Nations reimposed an international ban on Iran arms trades late September.
Chinese sales of products suspected of going to Iran’s missile program have come under increased scrutiny in the US.
China has long been a diplomatic and economic ally for Iran, importing its crude oil and decrying US sanctions on Tehran as illegal. It isn’t clear if the Chinese government is aware of shipments to Iran’s missile program, which are often carried out by Iranian-controlled vessels and companies.
“By remaining a permissive jurisdiction for the export of illicit technologies, China is an enabler for Iran’s ballistic missiles program.”
Companies in China typically provide dual-use technologies that improve the precision of Iran’s projectiles, such as spectrometers, gyroscopes and other measurement devices. “That is much more dangerous than chemical precursors.”
wsj.com/world/middle-e
