The Iranian Navy announces that it has thwarted an attack by pirates on an oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden

Official media reported that the Iranian navy intervened today, Saturday, to confront pirates who attacked an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden.

The Iranian Radio and Television Corporation said on its website that pirates on board five boats attacked a tanker, but they fled after being subjected to a barrage of fire from the Iranian navy.

The Iranian navy has expanded its reach in recent years, deploying ships in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden to protect its ships from attacks by Somali pirates.

And between 2010 and 2012, piracy operations caused losses estimated at $7 billion to the countries of the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Ethiopia), and more than a thousand people were kidnapped during those operations.