DUBAI: Dubai police said Thursday the Gulf emirate has seized thousands of small arms being smuggled in a sea cargo shipment bound for Yemen. Authorities said the guns were headed to Yemen's restive Saada region, where Houthi rebels have fought government forces for years. Dubai's government described the find as the largest arms shipment of its kind discovered in the region. Dubai's police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim said authorities found the 16,000 Turkish-made pistols in a red cargo shipping container, hidden behind boxes of furniture wrapped in plastic. The weapons were discovered in a Dubai warehouse about two weeks ago, he told reporters. Police showed photos and a video of thousands of metallic black, silver and gold colored handguns laid out on a concrete parking lot. The shipment originated in Turkey and passed through an Egyptian port before reaching Dubai's Jebel Ali port, police said. Jebel Ali is by far the busiest port in the Middle East. It and other Dubai docks serve as major transshipment hubs for cargo traveling between Asia, Europe, Africa and the rest of the Middle East. It was unclear who ordered the shipment. Tamim said it was unlikely the weapons were destined for the Yemeni government because they were counterfeit knockoffs of legitimate brands. He speculated that they might have been bound for Houthi rebels. But they also could have been ordered by middlemen who planned to sell them one by one, he said, noting that the unrest ensures that arms dealers have plenty of customers. “There is a market in Yemen,” he said. “If you want to sell it, people will buy.”
