Yemen seizes cargo with ‘Turkish-made’ guns

Yemen has captured another cargo of assault rifles originated from Turkey at the southern port of Aden, state media report.

Aden’s customs chief Mohammed Zumam told a Yemeni state news agency on Friday that some 3,780 automatic rifles were discovered in a container labeled as plastic household items.

The Yemeni official added that among the weapons found in the container were “115 T14 Turkish-made assault rifles.”

Zumam said the shipment had arrived in Yemen’s southern port from Turkey on November 16, 2012.

The latest incident marks the second time in a month that Yemeni authorities find a gun cargo shipped from Turkey.

Also in November 2012, the Yemeni Defense Ministry reported that security officials had seized around 3,000 pistols wrapped in biscuit boxes inside a container that had come from Turkey.

However, Ankara denied that it had authorized the arms shipment to Yemen, saying customs authorities at Turkey’s port of Mersin were told that the cargo consisted of biscuits and other food items.

On January 7, an unnamed Turkish official said the arms which were shipped to Yemen were duplicates of a US-made pistol model and did not show any markings or other hints that they had been produced in Turkey, the Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet reported.

In a similar incident, the customs authority of the United Arab Emirates seized arms bound for Yemen from Turkey in 2011. However, it is still unknown who had ordered the shipment.