June 17, 2016
The latest two-ship task force that Iran sent out to the Gulf of Aden, ostensibly to protect Iranian shipping from Somali pirates, returned to port last week after only 55 days at sea. Most of ships Iran dispatches stay at sea for 60-to-80 days, which is not a very long deployment. Iran did not say why the ships returned after so short a deployment. The last confirmed attack on any country’s shipping by Somali pirates was in October 2013. It was driven off. Iran has claimed to have foiled a dozen Somali pirate attacks since then. International agencies don’t believe Iran and have listed none of those Iranian claims.