Seals from USS Lewis Puller went overboard during mission off cost of Somalia to seize Iranian weapons, according to US military

Two US Navy Seals who went missing during an operation to seize Iranian weapons bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been declared dead after a 10-day search failed to locate them, the US military has said.

US Central Command (Centcom) had previously said that two Seals who were reported as lost at sea were involved in the 11 January operation, in which the elite special operations personnel boarded a dhow off the coast of Somalia and seized missile components made in Iran.

“We regret to announce that after a 10-day exhaustive search, our two missing US Navy Seals have not been located and their status has been changed to deceased,” Centcom said in a statement on Sunday.