Yemen's Navy detects suspicious Iranian ship in Gulf of Aden

Yemen's Navy said it detected on Monday an Iranian-flagged ship when the latter suspiciously docked in the Yemeni territorial water in the Gulf of Aden, the official Saba news agency reported.

"The Iranian ship (ASA) was detected by the radar of the Navy' s joint maritime operations," a naval official, Colonel Abdul- Rahman Moussa, was quoted by Saba as saying.

"When we communicated with the captain of the Iranian ship for the reasons behind the stopover in the Yemeni water, about 20 nautical miles south of Yemeni city port of Lahj, the captain refused to respond, which forced the Yemeni Navy to send a warning message for the ship to leave from the area," the official said.

He said that after sending the warning message, the Yemeni Navy dispatched a number of its naval boats towards the Iranian ship, pushing the latter to depart from the Yemeni territorial water to the Somali waters.

"The ship apparently tried to smuggle prohibited shipments or dump forbidden substances into the territorial waters of Yemen," the official added.

Relations between Yemeni and Iranian governments have been strained since the former formally accused the latter of funding a Shiite rebellion in north Yemen in 2004. The accusation was formally denied by Iran.

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