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Again, text PDB to 989898. It's Tuesday, the 16th of December. Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right. Let's get briefed. First up, U.S. Commandoes quietly boarded a cargo ship in the Indian Ocean and seized a shipment bound for Iran from China. No announcements, no fanfare, just a

quiet operation aimed at interdicting the parts Iran needs to rebuild its missile program.

Later in the show, the U.S. mission against drug cartels in the Eastern Pacific, well, that continues.

The military says new strikes on suspected narco-terror boats

killed eight as Washington ramps up pressure on cartel smuggling routes at sea. But first,

today's afternoon spotlight. U.S. commandos carried out a rare and highly sensitive operation

at sea, boarding a commercial cargo ship in the Indian Ocean and

seizing a shipment bound for Iran from China. According to U.S. officials, American intelligence

had been tracking the vessel for weeks as it made its way from a Chinese port toward Iran.

The ship was sailing several hundred miles off the coast of Sri Lanka when U.S. Special Operations

Forces moved

in. The boarding team seized the cargo, then allowed the ship itself to continue on its journey.

Officials say the shipment consisted of so-called dual-use components, items that can be used for

legitimate civilian purposes, but can also be repurposed to manufacture conventional weapons,

including missiles and drones. While the exact contents have not been publicly detailed,

U.S. intelligence assessed that the cargo was headed to Iranian intermediaries tied to the country's

weapons development programs. Compared to recent military operations in the Caribbean, this was a stealth

...