Two brothers described by federal prosecutors as being affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard have been indicted on new charges in what authorities said was a weapons-smuggling operation that led to the deaths of two Navy SEALs in the Arabian Sea early this year.
The brothers, both Iranian nationals who remain at large, employed the captain of a merchant vessel that was intercepted off the coast of Somalia by the U.S. military Jan. 11, according to the indictment that was issued by a federal grand jury in Virginia. Authorities said the vessel, called a “dhow,” was carrying Iranian-made missile warheads and components bound for militants in Yemen.
Two SEALs, Christopher J. Chambers, 37, and Nathan Gage Ingram, 27, died during the nighttime ship-boarding raid when one of them fell into the rough sea and the other jumped in to try to save him, officials said. Their bodies have not been recovered.
“The type of weaponry found aboard the dhow” was consistent “with the weaponry used by [Yemen’s] Houthi rebel forces in recent attacks on merchant ships and U.S. military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., said in statement.
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The indictment issued Wednesday expands on federal charges leveled against the brothers earlier this year.
Authorities identified the brothers as Shahab Mir’kazei and Yunus Mir’kazei. Each was indicted on multiple charges, including providing material support or resources to terrorists, resulting in death, and committing violence against maritime navigation involving weapons of mass destruction, resulting in death. The indictment says the two men “worked in Iran for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the country’s most powerful military institution.
The Houthi rebels are engaged in a civil war against Yemen’s government and are designated a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department. The organization is among a cluster of militias, including some operating in Iraq and Syria, which receive weapons and training from Iran as part of a vast anti-Israel, anti-U.S. network that Tehran has supported for years.
The deaths referred to in the charges were those of the two SEALs, who are identified in the indictment by their initials. The charges are punishable by up to life in prison.
Shahab Mir’kazei owned the intercepted ship, named the Yunus, which is also his brother’s name, prosecutors said. They said the brothers employed the vessel’s captain, Muhammad Pahlawan, 48, a Pakistani citizen who had been in federal custody since the Jan. 11 boarding.
Pahlawan also was charged in Wednesday’s indictment with the same offenses that the Mir’kazei brothers face. Two crew members of a dhow, also named in the indictment, were charged with the lesser offenses of lying to U.S. authorities during the boarding of a ship.
In all, 14 members of the crew, including the captain, were taken into custody in January after the boarding. How many are still being held was not immediately clear Thursday.
“Pahlawan allegedly worked with Shahab to prepare the dhow for multiple smuggling voyages, and Shahab paid Pahlawan in Iranian Rials from a bank account in Shahab’s name,” the statement said. “Pahlawan allegedly arranged to receive payments from Shahab and Yunus in Iran and distribute the money to his family and others.”
The vessel’s January trip in the Arabian Sea was part of an operation that began last August, according to the indictment. During that span, Pahlawan “completed multiple smuggling voyages, coordinated and funded by Shahab and Yunus, by traveling with cargo from Iran to the coast of Somalia and transporting that cargo to another dhow for ship-to-ship transfer.”
In January, “Pahlawan departed Iran and traveled toward the coast of Somalia with advanced conventional weaponry until United States forces stopped him,” the indictment says.
With the dhow at sea near Somalia on the night of Jan. 11, a team that included SEALs and U.S. Coast Guard personnel was dispatched from a floating base, the USS Lewis B. Puller, to raid the vessel, which was suspected of carrying illicit arms. As they attempted to board, one of the SEALs slipped from a ladder and the other, having witnessed his comrade fall into the water, dove in to help, officials said. Both vanished in the powerful swells.
The two were declared dead by the Navy after an exhaustive 10-day search covering 21,000 square miles of the Arabian Sea, officials said at the time, underscoring the risks to the United States of spiraling violence across the Middle East amid Israel’s war in Gaza.
After the missile components were confiscated, the dhow was intentionally sunk. The boarding team had deemed it “unsafe,” officials said.
The brothers, both Iranian nationals who remain at large, employed the captain of a merchant vessel that was intercepted off the coast of Somalia by the U.S. military Jan. 11, according to the indictment that was issued by a federal grand jury in Virginia. Authorities said the vessel, called a “dhow,” was carrying Iranian-made missile warheads and components bound for militants in Yemen.
Two SEALs, Christopher J. Chambers, 37, and Nathan Gage Ingram, 27, died during the nighttime ship-boarding raid when one of them fell into the rough sea and the other jumped in to try to save him, officials said. Their bodies have not been recovered.
“The type of weaponry found aboard the dhow” was consistent “with the weaponry used by [Yemen’s] Houthi rebel forces in recent attacks on merchant ships and U.S. military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., said in statement.
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The indictment issued Wednesday expands on federal charges leveled against the brothers earlier this year.
Authorities identified the brothers as Shahab Mir’kazei and Yunus Mir’kazei. Each was indicted on multiple charges, including providing material support or resources to terrorists, resulting in death, and committing violence against maritime navigation involving weapons of mass destruction, resulting in death. The indictment says the two men “worked in Iran for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the country’s most powerful military institution.
The Houthi rebels are engaged in a civil war against Yemen’s government and are designated a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department. The organization is among a cluster of militias, including some operating in Iraq and Syria, which receive weapons and training from Iran as part of a vast anti-Israel, anti-U.S. network that Tehran has supported for years.
The deaths referred to in the charges were those of the two SEALs, who are identified in the indictment by their initials. The charges are punishable by up to life in prison.
Shahab Mir’kazei owned the intercepted ship, named the Yunus, which is also his brother’s name, prosecutors said. They said the brothers employed the vessel’s captain, Muhammad Pahlawan, 48, a Pakistani citizen who had been in federal custody since the Jan. 11 boarding.
Pahlawan also was charged in Wednesday’s indictment with the same offenses that the Mir’kazei brothers face. Two crew members of a dhow, also named in the indictment, were charged with the lesser offenses of lying to U.S. authorities during the boarding of a ship.
In all, 14 members of the crew, including the captain, were taken into custody in January after the boarding. How many are still being held was not immediately clear Thursday.
“Pahlawan allegedly worked with Shahab to prepare the dhow for multiple smuggling voyages, and Shahab paid Pahlawan in Iranian Rials from a bank account in Shahab’s name,” the statement said. “Pahlawan allegedly arranged to receive payments from Shahab and Yunus in Iran and distribute the money to his family and others.”
The vessel’s January trip in the Arabian Sea was part of an operation that began last August, according to the indictment. During that span, Pahlawan “completed multiple smuggling voyages, coordinated and funded by Shahab and Yunus, by traveling with cargo from Iran to the coast of Somalia and transporting that cargo to another dhow for ship-to-ship transfer.”
In January, “Pahlawan departed Iran and traveled toward the coast of Somalia with advanced conventional weaponry until United States forces stopped him,” the indictment says.
With the dhow at sea near Somalia on the night of Jan. 11, a team that included SEALs and U.S. Coast Guard personnel was dispatched from a floating base, the USS Lewis B. Puller, to raid the vessel, which was suspected of carrying illicit arms. As they attempted to board, one of the SEALs slipped from a ladder and the other, having witnessed his comrade fall into the water, dove in to help, officials said. Both vanished in the powerful swells.
The two were declared dead by the Navy after an exhaustive 10-day search covering 21,000 square miles of the Arabian Sea, officials said at the time, underscoring the risks to the United States of spiraling violence across the Middle East amid Israel’s war in Gaza.
After the missile components were confiscated, the dhow was intentionally sunk. The boarding team had deemed it “unsafe,” officials said.
