The Arab Coalition supporting the Yemeni government said on Tuesday it had seized a Hezbollah-linked shipment of drugs destined for the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen.
A security source in Aden told The National that the coalition, in co-ordination with the security authorities in Aden, foiled drugs smuggling to the Houthi-held areas in Yemen's north.
“The shipment was sent by a smuggling network linked with Lebanese Hezbollah,” Saudi news channel Al Arabiya reported, quoting a coalition source.
Col Mohammed Al Qommaly told The National that coalition forces "seized a half tonne of cocaine and heroin hidden within sugar sacks shipped in containers".
“Based on the intelligence we received, we kept tracking the ship for more than a month until it docked in Aden harbour carrying tonnes of the sugar bags in which the drug shipment was hidden,” Col Al Qommaly said.
“The drugs shipment was entirely collected and officially handed over to the Public Prosecution in Aden to carry on the investigation process."
Security officials in Yemen have thwarted several similar attempts to smuggle large quantities of drugs to Houthi-held territory in recent years.
According to a report issued by the Yemeni Interior Ministry in July 2019, massive drug smuggling operations were under way in the northern provinces of Al Jawf, Hajjah, Marib and Al Baydha.
There, pro-government security forces have captured hundreds of smugglers and seized large amounts of cannabis and other drugs.
The ministry report said most of the confiscated drug shipments were heading to Houthi-held areas.
In June 2019, the security forces in Marib seized a shipment destined for the Houthi-held capital Sanaa.
Later, in March 2020, the ministry said the authorities in Marib province had seized 200 kilograms of cannabis from a vehicle travelling on the road linking Marib with Sanaa.
Experts say smugglers use the Yemeni routes to smuggle drugs northwards to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
“Not many Yemeni smugglers target the Yemeni market," said Fernando Carvajal, a former member of the UN panel on Yemen. "There is really no money in Yemen.”
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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