Two Navy SEALs Lost Overboard During Vessel Intercept off Somalia
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Two U.S. Navy SEALs who went lacking off Somalia on Saturday had been on a mission to board a vessel suspected of smuggling weapons to Yemen, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
On January 13, U.S. Central Command reported that two sailors had gone lacking and that search and rescue operations had been below method. They had been reported lacking at sea whereas conducting operations off the coast of Somalia, however CENTCOM mentioned for operational safety functions, it “wouldn’t launch extra data till the personnel restoration operation is full.”
U.S. officers advised the AP on Saturday that the lacking personnel had been Navy SEALS on an interdiction mission, and that it was a separate operation from the shipping-protection efforts ongoing within the Red Sea.
On Sunday, two U.S. officers confirmed to The Washington Post that the 2 SEALs had been misplaced throughout a ship-boarding operation to intercept Yemen-bound weaponry. One of them was knocked off a ladder by a wave and went into the water, and one other group member jumped in to assist. The officers additionally clarified the timeline: the boarding mishap occurred Thursday, which would seem to place it earlier than the large-scale joint strike on Houthi positions launched early Friday.
The consequence of the boarding mission was not launched, however the officers confirmed that the duty was to interdict a cargo of Iranian-made weapons to Houthi militants. This is a regularly-recurring interdiction job within the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman.
The two SEALs remained lacking and search operations had been nonetheless below method as of Sunday.