The U.S. Navy said Tuesday it seized 70 tons of ammonium perchlorate, a missile fuel component, that it found hidden among bags of fertilizer on board a ship from Iran that was bound for Yemen.
It was the first such seizure in Yemen’s eight-year-old war as a ceasefire there has broken down.
According to the Navy, the amount of ammonium perchlorate it seized would be enough to fuel more than a dozen medium-range ballistic missiles—the same weapons that Iran-backed Houthi rebels have used to target the Yemeni government and its Saudi-backed international coalition.
The seizure also comes less than a week after Iran’s military leaders, in what was perceived to be a not-so-veiled threat to Tehran’s global adversaries, claimed to have acquired for themselves hypersonic missiles, which can fly at five times the speed of sound, but offered no physical evidence to back up their statement.
