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The US Navy has released images of a huge cache of illicit weapons seized from a small ship in international waters in the North Arabian Sea.

The images showing thousands of Russian and Chinese weapons covering a deck on the USS Monterey.

, the navy said the source and intended destination of the weapons were under investigation.

It said the USS Monterey, a guided-missile cruiser, had stopped the ship during a routine boarding.

The vessel was described as "a stateless dhow" - a dhow being a type of traditional Arabian sailing ship.

"The cache of weapons included dozens of advanced Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles, thousands of Chinese Type 56 assault rifles, and hundreds of PKM machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades launchers. Other weapon components included advanced optical sights," the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, said in the statement.

After all the illicit cargo was removed, the dhow's crew was questioned, provided with food and water and released, the statement added.