Arms seized from ship steaming toward Egypt

On Tuesday March 15, the elite Israeli navy commando unit, Shayetet 13, seized freight ship "Victoria" about 200 miles east of Israel heading toward Egypt in order to deliver weapons to Hamas in Gaza. The weapons were supplied from Iran, transported by land through Syria, sent by ship from the Syrian port Latkia to the Turkish port Mersin. The ship contained 50 tons of weapons hidden under grain bags.

The weapons included Chinese-made C-704 land-to-sea missiles with a 35 kilometre range. To load weapons of this calibre on the ships required cooperation from higher level government officials. The weapons seizure is not only a victory for Shayetet 13 (which had been involved in such earlier incidents as the Marmara, the Francop, and the Karin A); it also highlights the cooperation between Iran, Syria, and Turkey in supplying arms to terrorist forces.