November 19, 2021
The Islamic Republic Navy has once again claimed to have foiled a pirate attack in fact two prirate attacks on an Iranian tanker in the Gulf of Aden north of Somalia.
But the running report on piracy incidents assembled by the International Chamber of Commerce has not included either claim, as it rarely believes the Iranian Navy’s claims.
Piracy has almost completely ended off the coasts of Somalia, but Iran continues to claim taking action against swarms of pirates and driving them off.
This time, the commander of Iran’s Navy, Rear Admiral Shahram Irani, said the Iranian Navy had once again successfully defended Iranian tankers from an attack by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. The admiral said that escorting Iranian oil tankers and commercial vessels was the main mission of the Navy.
“The 78th naval fleet of the Islamic Republic of Iran, consisting of the Alborz destroyer, was attacked by five pirate boats this morning [October 16] while escorting two Iranian tankers,” Irani said.
The Alborz, which is actually the size of a frigate and not a larger destroyer, was escorting two tankers when they reported that small boats attempted to approach one of them. They believed the pirates were attempting to damage the tanker, but the Alborz said it was able to get in between the tanker and the smaller boats and force the smaller boats away from the tanker.
“With the timely action of the marines, the two tankers safely passed through the Gulf of Aden,” the Admiral said.
The admiral did not name the tankers that came under attack, which is a suspicious sign when the Navy claims it has a rescued a tanker. In recent years, the only Iranian claim of foiling a pirate attack that has been accepted by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) was one a few years ago in which the tanker under attack was named.
Sixteen days later, the Navy said four boats carrying pirates had sought to board another Iranian tanker, again unnamed, in the Gulf of Aden but were foiled once again by the Alborz.
International agencies report little pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden anymore. In its report on global piracy in the first nine months of 2021, the ICC International Maritime Bureau said that there had only been one attack in the Gulf of Aden in the first nine months of 2021 and none in the similar periods of 2019 and 2020.