2 Iranian brothers face U.S. charges in Houthi weapons smuggling case

Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Two Iranian brothers allegedly working for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were charged Thursday in connection with the January interception of a boat smuggling advanced weaponry to Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Brothers Shahab Mir'kazei and Yunus Mir'kazei face charges of providing material support to Iran's weapons of mass destruction program resulting in death in a new indictment handed down by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The previously-charged captain of the alleged smuggling dhow, Pakistani national Muhammad Pahlawan, was also cited for the same counts in Thursday's superseding indictment.

The latest charges also cite all three men with conspiring to provide and providing material support to Iran, conspiring to commit violence against maritime navigation and maritime transport involving weapons of mass destruction resulting in death.

Pahlawan has been in custody since the Jan. 11 incident off the coast of Somalia, when U.S. Central Command Navy forces operating from the USS Lewis B. Puller, including Navy SEALs and members of the U.S. Coast Guard, boarded the ship.

Two Navy SEALs lost their lives during the interdiction.

Prosecutors said Shahab Mir'kazei and Yunus Mir'kazei remain at large. The pair have been identified as the organizers and financial backers of the alleged smuggling trip, which U.S. authorities say was undertaken to re-supply Houthis targeting U.S. Navy vessels and commercial shipping in the in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden amid Israel's war against Hamas .

CENTCOM says a search of the dhow turned up what is believed to be Iranian-made advanced conventional weaponry, including "critical components for medium range ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles" such as 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," prosecutors said.

The Mir'kazei brothers, on behalf of the IRGC, worked with Pahlawan to prepare the dhow for "multiple" smuggling voyages and paid the captain in Iranian Rials from a bank account in Shahab Mir'kazei's name, prosecutors alleged.

Pahlawan along with three associates were initially charged in February in connection with the alleged smuggling trip.