Azerbaijan, Baku, March 28 /Trend S.Isayev, T. Jafarov/
Iranian Navy got involved in a shootout with somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, Fars reported.
The Navy managed to save a merchant ship from the pirates, who fled after the shootout. No casualties were reported.
On Feb. 26 Iranian fleet of warships thwarted a pirate attack on Iranian oil tanker North of a strait connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
The Oil tanker came under attack by 6 Somali pirate speedboats 35 miles North of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. The Iranian naval forces and commandos' swift action forced the pirates to flee the scene.
Another similar incident happened on March 10, when another Iranian oil tanker escaped the Somalian pirates attack, with the help of Iranian Navy in the Aden Gulf.
The Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008, when Somali raiders hijacked the Iranian-chartered cargo ship, MV Delight, off the coast of Yemen.
According to UN Security Council resolutions, different countries can send their warships to the Gulf of Aden and coastal waters of Somalia against the pirates and even with prior notice to Somali government enter the territorial waters of that country in pursuit of Somali sea pirates.
The Gulf of Aden - which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea - is an important energy corridor, particularly because Persian Gulf oil is shipped to the West through the Suez Canal.