Iranian Navy in pirate shoot out

Iranian media report Navy fought off attack on oil tanker.

Iranian Navy in pirate shoot out

Iranian media has reported that the country’s navy has fought off a pirate attack on an Iranian oil tanker in the Red Sea. According to the article, the incident occurred on Thursday morning in an unspecified part of the Red Sea, when an oil tanker was apparently approached by eight skiffs carrying a number of armed men presumed to be Somali pirates.

The ship issued a distress call and elements of the 30th Fleet of the Iranian Navy, consisting of the Alvand frigate and Bushehr light replenishment ship, rushed to assist the tanker. Iranian Navy marines then engaged the pirates in a gun fight before forcing them to retreat. There were no injuries reported among the crew of the Iranian vessels.

The story seems to have been widely circulated ‘as is’, with little effort made by Western media to verify the details.

Iranian media regularly reports incidents where the country’s navy fight off pirate attacks, primarily against Iranian ships. Unfortunately, those reports never feature facts which could then be double checked, such as positional details, vessel names and so on, and the incidents themselves are never verified by the official reporting agencies.

A Pirate Action Group consisting of eight skiffs would be somewhat unusual as far as attacks are concerned, so Maritime Security Review will withhold judgement until this incident is confirmed by organisations such as UKMTO, the IMB or other information sharing centres in the region.