Officials keeping an eye on the developments said on Thursday that conditions on the high seas of West Asia remains unstable due to Iran’s substitutes intended commercial shipping in the Red and Arabian Seas and Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.

The Indian Navy has sent out five of its best guided missile destroyers to patrol the Arabian Sea’s shipping lanes in order to monitor the situation from the Red Sea to the country’s western coast. With a focus on vessels that could be used by Iranian proxies to target commercial ships, the Indian Navy has been conducting surveillance with Boeing P8I anti-submarine warfare aircraft and an unarmed drone in addition to the Brahmos land attack missile carrying INS Kolkata, INS Kochi, INS Mormugao, INS Chennai, and INS Visakhapatnam. The Indian Navy has hired the 25,000-tonne oil tanker MV Swarnmala to fuel its five best destroyers.

The Indian Navy has deployed INS Kolkata close to the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint on the Red Sea’s mouth, INS Kochi south of Socotra Island in Yemen, INS Mormugao in the western Arabian Sea, and INS Chennai in the central Arabian Sea as part of its proactive commitment to protecting the sea routes in the Arabian Sea. The Iranian ammunition Shahed 136 struck the chemical tanker MV Chem Pluto 210 nautical miles off the coast of Dwarka, Gujarat, two days ago, prompting INS Visakhapatnam, which was assigned to patrol the north Arabian Sea, to depart the Indian coast.

Along with combating black shipping, the Indian Navy is defending commercial ships in the vicinity of the Socotra Islands from Somali pirate attacks.