A special operations team under US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) boarded an unnamed ship off the coast of Sri Lanka, confiscating a part of its cargo containing components that could be used in guided missiles.
The mission, which took place a month ago, saw the seizure of dual-use components manufactured in China—such as spectrometers and gyroscopes—which were allegedly headed to Iran.
While the exact cargo of the boarded vessel remains unclear, an unnamed official suggested that the dual-use components, which could be used for civilian purposes, could also have been used to improve the precision of Iran's guided missiles, as per a Wall Street Journal report.
A Special Operations Team with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) boarded a commercial ship in the Indian Ocean - several hundred miles off the coast of Sri Lanka - last month and seized military-related articles headed to Iran from China, U.S. officials said, in a rare… pic.twitter.com/7uISCRe4YQ
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) December 12, 2025
The report added that the US had been tracking the vessel for some time. Commandos boarded it only when it was several miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, after which they seized a part of its cargo, and let the vessel leave.
Iranian-origin ballistic missiles have often been used—both by Iran and its proxies—to attack Israeli and American targets, as in the case of the Al Asad attack in August 2024 and the communicated attack on the Al Udeid airbase in June 2025.
This took place amid a strategic stalemate between the US and Iran over the latter restarting its nuclear weapons programme.
Earlier this year, the US inserted itself into a short conflict between Iran and Israel that saw the deaths of more than 1,000 people in just 12 days of intense fighting.
A key highlight of the June conflict was the US B-2 stealth bombers dropping 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs three Iranian underground nuclear facilities—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
Despite US President Donald Trump later claiming that the strikes had "significantly degraded" Iran's nuclear infrastructure, analysts fear that Tehran continues its attempts to rebuild.
Notably, the November operation also took place weeks before the controversial US seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker on Wednesday over sanctions violations.
This caused a sharp decline in Caracas's oil exports, fuelling the tensions between Trump and Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.
