Amid more reports that Iran is funneling weapons to various Shia factions in the region, mainly to Yemen where it is allegedly supporting the Houthis, a former Shia rebel faction based in the northern province of Sa'ada, a Saudi diplomat has accused Tehran of using Oman as a way-station for its illegal weapons smuggling.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been keeping a tight leash on Iran's dealings with factions in Yemen as a way to assert and expand its presence in the Peninsula and ensure that its ideology maintains a footing in an otherwise overwhelmingly Sunni region.
But beyond Yemen and the Houthis, Iran would also seek to arm Shia factions within Saudi Arabia.
“Oman has generally not stopped Iranian activities and so was being used to smuggle weapons to Tehran’s proxies in Yemen and probably Saudi Arabia,” a diplomat said.
As proof of his theory, the diplomat referred to Oman's weapons seizure on July 10th, when a reported 30,000 pistols were found hidden in a tanker destined for Yemen.
At the time Oman police Col. Abdullah Bin Saleh Al Ghailani told the press, “We recovered 30,393 pistols hidden inside eight containers after the ship docked at the port in Sohar. The seized cargo was meant to be sent to another country.”
While at first Turkey was blamed, with allegations that Ankara would be meddling within Yemen internal affairs by covertly arming factions in the impoverished nation in order to further its agenda, others sources theorized that Iran had a hand in the matter, through the Turkish Believing Youth movement, a faction close to Tehran.
In order to throw off investigators, Iran would be using foreign factions under its control to supply weapons to groups throughout the region, in this instance Yemen.
Iran has long been accused by the Yemeni coalition government of meddling, hampering and conniving. Such mistrust has actually led to a breakdown in diplomatic ties.