On May 9, the U.S. Navy announced that the cruiser USS Monterey had confiscated weapons from a stateless dhow in the Arabian Sea, which appeared to be transporting the cargo to Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The arms hidden below the vessel's deck included almost 3,000 Chinese-made assault rifles, hundreds of machine guns and sniper rifles, hundreds of optical sights and rocket-propelled grenades, and dozens of Russian-manufactured anti-tank guided missiles. A U.S. defense official said that interviews with the dhow's crew and an inspection of the weapons indicated that the ship had originated in Iran. An arms embargo imposed by the U.N. Security Council in 2015 prohibits the provision of weapons to the Houthis.