Mogadishu: A government official in Somalia says security forces have seized a boat carrying weapons that were being smuggled from Al Qaida militants in Yemen to fighters in Somalia.
Saeed Mohammad Rage, the minister for ports and anti-piracy efforts of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, said on Saturday that security forces seized the boat along with a Yemeni man on Friday.
Rage said the boat was carrying explosives, switches, rockets, guns, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades. Rage said the cargo was to be smuggled to radical Islamist Al Shabab fighters in southern Somalia.
Al Qaida and Al Shabab — Somalia’s most powerful militant group — announced a merger earlier this year.
Puntland fears that Al Qaida-linked violence in Yemen — which lies to the north just across the Gulf of Aden — will spill over into northeastern Somalia.
