Iran sends warships into Gulf of Aden

Iran has deployed a flotilla of warships and support vessels into the Gulf of Aden, the second in recent weeks, and says it also plans to establish a new naval base in the Gulf of Oman, at the southern end of the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz.

This expanding naval activity by the Iranians may be intended to counter a recent increase in Israeli naval deployments. It also takes place against a backdrop of widening political turmoil in Tehran following the disputed re-election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 12 that has caused international unease about what might ensue.

The naval units will replace an earlier flotilla dispatched by Tehran several weeks ago, ostensibly to help an international naval task force led by the United States to combat piracy off the coast of lawless Somalia.

However, the Iranian move followed the Israeli navy’s deployment of one of its three German-built Dolphin-class submarines, believed to be capable of firing nuclear-armed cruise missiles, and two Saar 5-class missile corvettes from the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in June and July.

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