Indian warships to stay longer in Persian Gulf, but won't join US coalition

Navy ships have been escorting Indian-flagged vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

Indian warships escorting merchant vessels in the Persian Gulf will remain deployed for the longer term, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said, as tensions between Iran and Western powers rise.

But the two ships, backed by surveillance aircraft, will not be part of a military coalition that the United States is assembling to safeguard the waters off Iran near the Straits of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil moves, the two officials said.

Since June following attacks on tankers that the United States blamed on Iran and Iran-aligned fighters, a charge Tehran denies, the Indian navy ships