US backs down over Yemen missile seizure
Spy satellites had tracked the Yemen-bound freighter since it left a North Korean port last month with 15 Scud missiles hidden under a cargo of 40,000 bags of cement.
Two Spanish warships intercepted the vessel in the Arabian Sea last night but it only obeyed orders to stop when shots were fired across its bows.
Armed US agents and Spanish marines boarded the freighter, which had been crudely disguised as a Cambodian ship, and questioned the North Korean skipper who said he was only carrying cement.
Then the missiles, 15 high-explosive warheads and 83 drums of inhibited red fuming nitric acid, an agent used in Scud fuel, were discovered.
The shipment was part of a deal between North Korea and Yemen which led to economic sanctions against North Korea, but not Yemen, in August.
The Bush administration decided not to sanction the Arab state because it supports US military and intelligence operations against al-Qaida.
An administration official said the Yemeni government had promised Washington it would not purchase any more Scuds from North Korea, a promise the latest shipment would violate, the official said.
Yemen a hotbed of al-Qaida support protested as the US began escorting the freighter to the British naval base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.
The US ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry in San'aa and told in no uncertain terms the missiles were destined for Yemeni defence forces.
After heated discussions in the White House and Pentagon the US backed down.
"There is no provision under international law prohibiting Yemen from accepting delivery of missiles from North Korea," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer admitted.
While Yemen is a nominal ally in the global war on terror, it is also Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland and the site of the bombing of a US warship.
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