Pirate attacks targeting commercial shipping, including oil cargoes, have sharply increased, National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) managing director Ali Akbar Shafa’ie has said.
“Between 2007 and 2008 when maritime piracy began in the Gulf of Aden, our National Iranian Tanker Company fleet came under more than 70 attacks but they escalated very much in 2014 and the beginning of 2015,” he told the Labor news agency ILNA.
However, none of the attacks on the Iranian cargoes was successful, Shafa’ie said.
“Most of the pirate attacks in the Strait of Malacca, around Sri Lanka, the Indian Ocean and some African coasts are traditional robberies but the Somalia phenomenon which started in the Gulf of Aden in 2008 has an intensity never seen before.”
Via: http://www.tehrantimes.com
