Iranian commandos sent to arrest Somali pirates

A senior commander says Iranian special forces have bee sent to the Gulf of Aden to preserve shipping security and go ahead with a plan to arrest Somali pirates.

The Iranian navy sent a new fleet of warships last week to fight the Somali pirates off the Somalia's coast.

"We are in a struggle to capture pirates in the region," Fars news agency quoted Amir Qaderpanah as saying on Friday.

Qaderpanah says the Iranian commandos, who had been specially trained, were deployed in two places in the Gulf of Aden to carry out the mission.

Iran decided to send more ships to the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian merchant vessels and oil tankers from Somali buccaneers in the volatile waters.

The dispatch would be Iran's fourth, Fariborz Qaderpanah, a senior naval commander said on Wednesday.

He added that the armada would include the Alborz warship and the Bushehr logistics vessel.

The Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008, when Somali raiders hijacked the Iranian-chartered cargo ship, MV Delight, off the coast of Yemen.

The Gulf of Aden - which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea - is an important energy corridor, particularly because Persian Gulf oil is shipped to the West via the Suez Canal.