(CNN) The Indian Navy is sending two warships to the Gulf of Oman to protect the country's shipping in the wake of a series of attacks on tankers there in the past six weeks.

The guided-missile destroyer INS Chennai and the patrol vessel INS Sunayna "have been deployed in the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf to undertake maritime security operations," an Indian Navy statement said.

Surveillance aircraft are also being dispatched in what India is calling Operation Sankalp.

India announced the operation Friday, one day after Iran said it shot down a US spy drone over the Gulf of Oman.

The Indian guided-missile destroyer INS Chennai is shown ahead of its commissioning into the Indian Navy in Mumbai on November 18, 2016. The ship is heading to the Gulf of Oman to help protect Indian shipping from the attacks that have been happening there.

The US and Iran differ on whether the drone was in Iranian or international airspace, but the incident has inflamed an already tense situation that has seen six civilian ships damaged in the past six weeks.

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