Britain's Royal Navy said on Thursday one of its warships had seized Iranian weapons, including surface-to-air-missiles and engines for cruise missiles, from smugglers in international waters south of Iran early this year.
A helicopter from the frigate HMS Montrose spotted speedboats moving away from the Iranian coast on Jan. 28 and Feb. 25 and dozens of packages containing the advanced weaponry were confiscated, Reuters quoted the Royal Navy as saying in a statement.
The Iranian foreign ministry rejected Britain’s claim. Britain “does not have the moral authority to make a claim against” Iran, it said.
The Royal Navy said: "The seized packages were returned to the UK for technical analysis which revealed that the shipment contained multiple rocket engines for the Iranian produced 351 land attack cruise missile and a batch of 358 surface-to-air missiles."
It did not say where the missiles were bound, but said the 351 cruise missile, with a range of 1,000 km, is often used by Yemen's Houthi militias to target Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The US Navy destroyer USS Gridley supported the February seizure, the Royal Navy said. Both seizures occurred while HMS Montrose was on routine maritime security operations, it added.
"This action demonstrates that we will not allow irresponsible and aggressive acts by Iran to go unchecked on land, sea, and air," US Central Command spokesperson Colonel Joseph Buccino said in a statement.
