The Antigua-flagged arms ship Francop commandeered by the Israeli Navy early Wednesday, Nov. 4, near Cyprus, carried 300 containers, in 40 of which hundreds of tons of Iranian arms for Hizballah were hidden, said Israeli Navy commander Brig.-Gen Ronnie Ben-Yehuda in a news briefing Wednesday, Nov 3. Most of it was ammo, grenades, 122-km Katyusha rockets, mortar shells and anti-tank missiles, enough to keep Hizballah fighting for a month or more.
DEBKAfile‘s military sources report the first arms ship set out from Kish Island or Bandar Abbas in the third week of October and was detected by US satellites over the weekend while heading out of the Straits of Hormuz and into the Gulf of Oman. The USS Anzio guided missile cruiser of the US Navy’s Task Force 151 shadowed the weapons ship as it sailed into the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. This task force leads the operations against piracy and Iranian arms smuggling under the command of Rear Adm. Scott Sanders.