Iran has sent two warships to the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to "maintain maritime security", local Iranian media reported Thursday evening.

"The Iranian navy dispatched a fleet consisting of one destroyer and one support ship to the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandeb," Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

A narrow body of water linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the Bab al-Mandeb separates the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.

The vessels, the news agency reported, had been deployed to the strategic waterway in order to "protect Iranian commercial vessels from pirate attacks".

Notably, the Iranian naval deployment comes in the immediate wake of a U.S. missile strike -- the first of its kind -- on a coastal area of Yemen held by the Shia Houthi militia, which some observers describe as an Iranian proxy force.