India’s navy deploys warships to Arabian Sea after tanker attack
Al Jazeera
Guided missile destroyers to ‘maintain deterrent presence’ after Israel-linked vessel hit off Indian coast.
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 late on Monday. It was also using long-range maritime patrol aircraft for “domain awareness”, it said.
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.
The Indian Navy said it was investigating the nature of the attack on MV Chem Puto, which “anchored safely” in the financial capital, Mumbai, on Monday.
