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U.S. Embassy Marines in Yemen destroyed all of their weapons as they evacuated the country with diplomatic personnel under orders from the State Department, the Marine Corps said in a statement Wednesday night.
"To be clear, no Marine handed a weapon to a Houthi, or had one taken from him," the Marines said in the statement distributed by the Pentagon.
Earlier Wednesday, a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, said that the Embassy Marines had destroyed their crew-served weapons at the Embassy but had "left behind" their personal weapons such as M-9 pistols and M-4 carbines at the airport in the capital city of Sanaa.
"The Marine Security Force left the American embassy in Yemen for the movement to the airfield as part of the 'ordered departure' with only personal weapons. All crew-served weapons were destroyed at the Embassy prior to movement. None of them were 'handed over' in any way to anyone," the Marine Corps said.
"Upon arrival at the airfield, all personal weapons were rendered inoperable in accordance with advance planning," the statement said. "Specifically, each bolt was removed from its weapons body and rendered inoperable by smashing with sledgehammers. The weapons' bodies, minus the bolts, were then separately smashed with sledgehammers."