U.S. Seizes Drugs With Possible Al Qaeda Link

WASHINGTON — A U.S. warship seized nearly 2 tons of hashish from a small vessel in the northern Arabian Sea this week and detained the boat’s 12 crew members, who were believed to be smuggling the contraband for Al Qaeda, the military said Friday.

The crew and drugs from the 40-foot dhow were seized Monday, when a team from the guided-missile destroyer Decatur boarded the boat near the Strait of Hormuz, a Navy statement said. Three of the detainees may be linked to the terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., the statement said. The drugs are estimated to have a street value of between $8 million to $10 million.

“An initial investigation uncovered clear ties between the smuggling operation and Al Qaeda,” the statement said.

The military declined to say where the ship came from or where it was headed.

The U.S. and its allies have made other high-profile confiscations in the region’s waters in the last several years, after surveillance and interdiction efforts increased in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Last December, the Spanish navy intercepted a ship carrying North Korean-made Scud missiles off Yemen’s coast. The U.S. eventually allowed Yemen to take delivery of the shipment.

This year, Navy ships plying waters near Iraq have queried crews of more than 5,000 vessels and boarded more than 2,900, said Cmdr. James Graybeal, a Navy spokesman in Bahrain. They have confiscated 10,000 tons of smuggled oil, he said.

The shipping dhows are being used to haul guns and other contraband from the Arabian Peninsula into Somalia every couple of days, contributing to instability in East Africa, according to a U.N. report released last month.

The boarding Monday, in which 54 bags of narcotics weighing 70 pounds each were seized, “is indicative of the need for continuing maritime patrol of the Gulf in order to stop the movement of terrorists, drugs and weapons,” Navy Rear Adm. Jim Stavridis said in the statement. “This is a vital part of winning the global war on terror.”