The details were added (the first version was posted at 15:34)
Azerbaijan, Baku, Apr. 7/ Trend F.Milad/
Iranian navy has captured 9 Somali pirates while freeing a Chinese ship, Fars News Agency reported.
Iranian naval forces have freed ten Chinese freighters hijacked by Somali pirates off southern Iran on Friday .
Deputy navy commander, Gholamreza Khadem Bigham, said that a cargo ship, named the "Xianghuamen," which had been captured by pirates, has been released by the Iranian naval forces.
Earlier, Mehr news agency reported that Chinese Embassy in Tehran asked the Iranian government to take all necessary steps to recover a Chinese freighter which has been hijacked by pirates off southern Iran and save its crew.
An Iranian port official Saeed Izadiyan said the pirates were Somalian nationals and that the ship was now on its way to Iran.
The Xianghuamen had departed from Shanghai, stopped to unload goods in Singapore, and had been on its way to Imam Khomeini port in southwest Iran, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.
Chinese ambassador to Iran Yu Hongyang urged Iran to make the safety of the crew as a priority.
Iranian navy also captured 12 suspected Somali pirates in late March, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said, Fars reported.
Iranian navy arrested the pirates from a 3,000-km distance of Iranian borders in free water.
Sayyari said that Iranian Jamaran destroyer attacked the pirates when they want to seize the Iranian ship transporting 10,000 tons of cargo in the Indian Ocean.