US Navy & Somali Pirates Head Towards Showdown!

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Somali Pirates Vow Revenge After U.S., French Commando Raids


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By Hamsa Omar and Gregory Viscusi
April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Somali pirates vowed to target American and French ships to avenge the death of five colleagues in two recent rescue operations, including the freeing of a U.S. captain yesterday.
“France and the U.S. will encounter unforgettable lessons,” Mohamed Hashi Yasin, a self-declared pirate spokesman, said by mobile phone from the port town of Eyl. “We will treat every country as they treat us.”
U.S. snipers yesterday killed three Somali pirates and rescued a U.S. ship captain who had been held for five days aboard a lifeboat. Two days earlier, French snipers killed two Somali pirates and commandos stormed a captured yacht to arrest three others and free four French hostages. One hostage died in that operation.
“We will take quick revenge on American ships if we don’t receive apologies,” Yusuf Mohamed Mahdi, who identified himself as a pirate commander, said in a separate telephone interview today from Eyl. “We will not only target ships and crew in the sea, but also American agencies’ staff in Somalia.”
The French and U.S. operations didn’t deter pirates from striking elsewhere. An Italian tugboat was seized two days ago with 16 crew, including 10 Italians, five Romanians and one Croatian. It’s being shadowed by the Italian frigate Maestrale, which is in the area as part of the European Union’s Atalanta anti-piracy mission, the Italian defense ministry says.
“It is obviously good news that hostages are being rescued, but it may lead to changes in the way the pirates operate,” said Giles Noakes, head of security at Copenhagen- based Bimco, the world’s largest shipping organization. “Our advice remains that if you don’t need to transit the zone, don’t. And if you do need to, alert the navies in the area, or stay well east of the Seychelles.”
Attacks Surge
Attacks have surged this past month as pirates strike off the east coast of Somalia to avoid naval patrols in the Gulf of Aden. Pirates have assaulted 64 ships so far this year, taking 19 of them, according to the U.S. Navy. A total of 15 ships and more than 230 seamen are being held by Somali pirates in various ports along the country’s lawless coasts.
The three pirates holding 53-year-old Richard Phillips were shot from the fantail of destroyer USS Bainbridge. A fourth pirate was onboard the U.S. boat receiving medical treatment and was arrested.
Yasin said pirates are angered by the U.S. operation because talks were underway to release Phillips.
“The Americans broke the peace process and killed our teenagers aggressively,” Yasin said. “They tricked us and opted out of the peace deal.”
Talks With Elders
Yasin’s version of events agreed with that of Ecoterra, an East African environmental group. In an e-mail, it said negotiations between elders in Somalia and the U.S. Navy were stalled because the Americans insisted on arresting the pirates, while the elders refused but promised to punish them themselves.
The U.S. snipers were ordered to shoot because a gun was being pointed at Phillips, said Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
“The captain’s life was in immediate danger,” Gortney said by teleconference from his headquarters in Bahrain, adding the on-scene commander “had seconds” to make a decision. The pirates were picked off with three shots -- one each by snipers using night-vision scopes at dusk.
The Maersk Alabama was the first American-operated ship to be seized in a spate of hijackings in the waters off Somalia, which hasn’t had a central government for more than 17 years. The Maersk Alabama’s crew had managed to repulse the hijackers when they boarded the vessel on April 8.
Attempted Escape
Phillips agreed to go with the pirates to ensure his crew remained safe. He jumped overboard once in an effort to escape, only to be recaptured after being shot at, Gortney said.
President Barack Obama had given standing orders for a rescue effort if Phillips’s life was in danger, Gortney said.
In the case of the French yacht, French negotiators never bothered to involve village elders, Ecoterra said. Defense Minister Herve Morin said at a press conference that the French commandos attacked because they picked up threats that the pirates might execute the hostages. Ecoterra said the pirates would have only harmed the hostages in the case of a French assault.
The four surviving hostages, who included a 3-year-old boy, arrived back in France yesterday. At the request of their families, no TV cameras were present as they landed at an army base near Paris.
The body of the fifth hostage, Florent Lemacon, 27, the father of the child, will be returned to France later this week. An autopsy should determine if he was killed in crossfire during the three-minute operation, or if he was executed by the pirates.
No Functioning Government
Somalia has lacked a functioning central government since the ouster of Mohamed Said Barre in 1991, and pirates are able to operate out of its lawless seashore, which is almost as long as the U.S.’s Eastern seaboard.
Captain Shane Murphy, the Alabama’s second in command, asked at a press conference today that Obama take further steps to combat piracy.
“I appeal to President Obama to use all resources to end this scourge of Somali piracy,” the 33-year-old said in Mombasa. “It’s a crisis, wake up.”
The Maersk Alabama is operated by the Maersk Line, a Norfolk, Virginia-based U.S. unit of A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, based in Copenhagen. The boat is in Mombasa, Kenya and the crew isn’t being allowed to return home yet because Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have deemed it a crime zone. Murphy wouldn’t give details of how the crew wrestled back control of the boat from the pirates.
Halting Piracy
“We remain resolved to halt the rise of piracy in this region,” Obama said in a statement. “To achieve that goal, we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes.”
About 25 warships from the EU, the U.S., Turkey, China, India, Russia and Malaysia are in the Gulf of Aden to protect a shipping route that carries about one-tenth of world trade.
The Alabama is the first U.S.-flagged vessel hijacked since a maritime protection corridor was set up near Somalia in August, according to the U.S. Navy. Pirates attacked 165 ships last year between Yemen and Somalia, seizing 43 for ransom.
“It’s such a vast area,” Gortney added. “We simply do not have enough resources” to prevent all attacks. There have been 18 or 19 attempts on ships in the past three weeks, he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Hamsa Omar in Dar es Salaam via Johannesburg at [email protected]; Gregory Viscusi in Paris at [email protected].
Last Updated: April 13, 2009 09:34 EDT

 

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U.S. Military Considers Attacks on Somali Pirates’ Land Bases


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By Jeff Bliss

April 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. military is considering attacks on pirate bases on land and aid for the Somali people to help stem ship hijackings off Africa’s east coast, defense officials said.
The military also is drawing up proposals to aid the fledgling Somalia government to train security forces and develop its own coast guard, said the officials, who requested anonymity. The plans will be presented to the Obama administration as it considers a coordinated U.S. government and international response to piracy, the officials said.
The effort follows the freeing yesterday of Richard Phillips, a U.S. cargo ship captain held hostage since April 8 by Somali pirates. Security analysts said making shipping lanes safe would require disrupting the pirates’ support network on land.
“There really isn’t a silver-bullet solution other than going into Somalia and rooting out the bases” of the pirates, said James Carafano, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based group.
In 1992, under then-President George H.W. Bush, U.S. forces that landed in Somalia to confront widespread starvation found themselves in the middle of a civil war. Forty-two Americans died before former President Bill Clinton pulled out the troops in 1994.
No such broad military effort is being seriously considered now, the defense officials said.
Need for Somali Support
The defense officials cautioned that any actions, whether diplomatic or military, would need the support of the Somali people, who are traditionally suspicious of foreign intervention.
President Barack Obama, who gave permission for the military operation to free Phillips yesterday, is coordinating the U.S. response to piracy with other countries and the shipping industry to reduce vessels’ vulnerability to attack, boost operations to foil attacks and prosecute any captured suspects, said a senior administration official.
The administration official, who requested anonymity, declined to provide further details.
U.S. officials said the goal of a response to the piracy problem would be to encourage Somalis to help clamp down on lawlessness and to ease poverty, an outgrowth of 18 years without a strong central government.
‘One Symptom’
“Piracy is one symptom of the difficult situation in Somalia,” said Laura Tischler, a State Department spokeswoman.
Under discussion are ways to send more direct food and agricultural aid to the country, the defense officials said.
The U.S. military’s African Command, or Africom, could lead the land-based effort. Unlike other commands, Africom doesn’t have large military units. It also has only one permanent base, in Djibouti. The staff of Africom is half civilian and half military personnel and includes representatives from the Departments of State, Treasury and Health and Human Services.
Any U.S. actions on the seas may be coordinated by the Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain.
Also, efforts to ferret out pirates may be jointly conducted with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the defense official said.
Joint Partnerships
The U.S. has used a similar partnership between the military and law enforcement to fight drug cartels in South and Central America.
U.S. action would come as new approaches to fight piracy have emerged over the past seven months. In August, countries increased ship escorts and naval patrols around the Gulf of Aden, site of most East African attacks. In December, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed an anti-piracy resolution.
The UN measure allowed for attacks on pirate land bases and led to the formation of a 28-nation group that has met twice since January to coordinate diplomatic, legal and military efforts.
In January, the U.S. also signed an agreement with Kenya to prosecute suspected pirates handed over by the U.S. military. The U.S. will try anyone who attempts to hijack U.S. ships or hold U.S. captives, Tischler said.
Countries should use existing legal codes, such as the Law of the Sea Treaty and Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, to develop a process for prosecuting pirates, U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen said.
‘Ample Legal Requirements’
There are “ample legal requirements and jurisdiction to be able to take action against these pirates,” Allen said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week.” “That’s what we should be doing.”
The Obama administration also is urging shipping companies and international maritime groups to employ private security forces and take steps such as unbolting ladders that pirates could use to board a vessel.
The U.S. should make sure to involve other countries, international aid organizations and the shipping industry in its plans, security analysts said.
Lack of coordination has been a major reason for the proliferation of piracy incidents, said Yonah Alexander, director of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies’ International Center for Terrorism Studies, a Washington-based policy group.

 

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Lack of Strategy
“Everyone is trying to water their own tree rather than looking at the whole forest,” said Alexander, co-author of the soon-to-be-published “Terror on the High Seas: From Piracy to Strategic Challenge.” “The international community doesn’t have a coherent, holistic strategy to deal with this.”
Current military efforts have had limited success, security analysts said. In January, the U.S. formed Task Force 151, which uses ships, helicopters and Marine Corps snipers to thwart piracy in the region.
In February, the task force prevented pirates from seizing two vessels. It also responded to the seizure of Phillips’ vessel, the Maersk Alabama, which is operated by Maersk Line, the Norfolk, Virginia-based U.S. unit of Copenhagen-based A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S.
About 25 warships from the European Union, the U.S., Turkey, Russia, India and China have concentrated their efforts to protect the Gulf of Aden.
In response, the pirates have moved south and further out to sea.
Futility
The capture of the Maersk Alabama, which was hijacked 500 miles south of the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean, shows the futility of concentrating security forces solely at sea, said Neil Livingstone, chairman and chief executive officer of ExecutiveAction LLC, a Washington-based anti-terrorism consultant for businesses.
“It’s a massive area,” he said. “You can’t patrol all of it.”
The region Somali pirates operate in is equal in size to the Mediterranean and Red Seas combined.
The U.S. should take as its model the 1801 decision by then-President Thomas Jefferson to send a naval force to assault the land bases of Barbary pirates, who were extorting money from U.S. merchant ships off Libya’s coast, security analysts said.
The pirates eventually succumbed to a mixture of U.S. military and diplomatic pressure.
Before taking any action, though, the U.S. should come up with a plan so it isn’t caught unprepared like it was during its 1992 Somalia intervention, Carafano said.
“We need to be a little more thoughtful and rational” this time and develop a detailed strategy, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington [email protected].
Last Updated: April 12, 2009 22:20 EDT