New Delhi: The Indian Navy has now deployed five frontline guided missile destroyers along with logistics tanker, Boeing P 8 I anti-submarine warfare aircraft and long endurance Sea Guardian drone to keep the sea lanes of communication between Bab el-Mandeb to Indian coast safe for merchant shipping and missile attack by Iranian proxies in the Middle-East.
The Indian Navy has dispatched guided missile destroyers to the Arabian Sea after an attack on an Israel-linked chemical tanker off its coast, the Ministry of Defence said.
Three stealth-guided destroyers were deployed “in various areas of the sea” to “maintain a deterrent presence” considering the “recent spate of attacks in the Arabian Sea”, the ministry said in a statement. It was also using long-range maritime patrol aircraft for “domain awareness”, it said.
It is understood that the Indian Navy has deployed INS Kolkata, INS Kochi, INS Mormugao, INS Chennai and INS Visakhapatnam into the Arabian theatre independent of the US-led coalition in the Middle-East region. While INS Kolkata is on the mouth of Red Sea, INS Kochi is south of Yemen Socotra Island, INS Mormugao is in west Arabian sea with Chennai in Central Arabian sea.
The United States claimed that the December 23 strike on MV Chem Pluto in the Indian Ocean was “fired from Iran”, an accusation that Tehran has dismissed as baseless.
The attack came as a US-led task force sought to counter similar threats to maritime shipping in the Red Sea posed by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels.
Amid the uptick in maritime strikes, this was the first that the US has sought to directly pin on Iran. It was also the first on a vessel outside the Red Sea.
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