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

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