Golden Mori---"Maersk II?"

Found an interesting link regarding what could become a pirate standoff similar to that of the Maersk Alabama. This time, the ship is Japanese with a mostly Phillipino crew, so our press probably won't touch it much. Unfortunately, this story is already several days old...

The U.S. Navy said Thursday that it intended to remove pirates from a hijacked Japanese tanker monitored by American warships off the coast of Somalia. A crew member's sister said negotiations were under way for the release of the ship.

The Navy came to the aid of the chemical tanker this week, at one point opening fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to it.

***

Negotiations have started for the release of the Japanese tanker, anchored in Somali waters with 23 crew members from the Philippines, South Korea and Myanmar, said Josefina Villanueva, whose brother Laureano is a Filipino supervisor aboard the Golden Nori.

"The pirates are still on board with the crewmen. They can't leave," she said, relaying information families had received from the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs.

She said there had been no ransom demand from the pirates. "The talks are just starting. I think the pirates will later on demand something," she said.

Another interesting tidbit from the same story: The USN rendered assistance to a DPRK ship attacked by pirates. First time I heard it. I suppose it's possible that I'm lagging behind on current events, but it seems these are pretty important events that aren't getting much coverage.

It also helped a North Korean ship whose crew overpowered pirates in a clash that left several crew members wounded and one hijacker dead. The hijackers were being held aboard the ship until they can be handed over for prosecution at a port. After the clash, Navy personnel boarded the North Korean boat to treat the wounded.

H/T: Subsim

A Confusing Lack of Policy

Twice in the last several days, our allies have captured pirates, only to release them:

The Netherlands nabed seven, and had this to say:

He said the hostages had been held since last week. The commandos briefly detained and questioned the seven gunmen, he told Reuters, but had no legal power to arrest them.

"NATO does not have a detainment policy. The warship must follow its national law," he said.

"They can only arrest them if the pirates are from the Netherlands, the victims are from the Netherlands, or if they are in Netherlands waters."

The Canadians got a few too, with the same result:

Lt. Cmdr. Fernandes said Sunday that the pirates were released because they cannot be prosecuted under Canadian law. He said the decision to detain pirates was a matter for national authorities not NATO.

What the hell? Before, it seemed the normal M.O. for the US, UK, and EU was to send these guys to Kenya for prosecution. Maybe there is something weird going on, with different commands having different policies. There are at least 4 different task forces (CTF150, CTF151, NATO Standing Maritime Group, and EU NAVFOR) operating in the area.

The Dutch ship, HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën (F802), is part of the NATO group, and the only Canadian ship on the OOB is the HMCS Winnipeg (FFH 338), also in the NATO group. So, I'm guessing that the NATO chain of command hasn't bothered with setting a policy here, while the CTF's and possibly EU NAVFOR probably have.

In any case, both the lack of a NATO policy, and the lack of domestic univseral jurisdiction anti-piracy laws in the Netherlands and Canada, is appalling.

An Ounce of Prevention... (updated)

An important victory for the French was reported today. Maybe there is something to a pro-active approach after all.

Somali pirates vowed to hunt down American ships and kill their sailors and French forces detained 11 other brigands in a high-seas raid as tensions ratcheted up Wednesday off Africa's volatile eastern coast.

* * *

The French forces launched an early morning attack on a pirate "mother ship" after spotting the boat Tuesday with a surveillance helicopter and observing the pirates overnight.

A "mother ship" is usually a seized foreign vessel that pirates use to transport speedboats far out to sea and resupply them as they plot their attacks. The ship was intercepted 550 miles (900 kilometers) east of the Kenyan city of Mombasa.

The French Defense Ministry said the raid thwarted the sea bandits' planned attack on the Liberian cargo ship Safmarine Asia. The detained pirates were being held on the Nivose, a French frigate among the international fleet trying to protect shipping in the Gulf of Aden.

It's encouraging to see that naval forces were apparently able to tell pirate from fisherman before an attack ever took place. And that they did it with only air assets is even better, because it means a larger area can be searched.




UPDATE:
CNN is now reporting the same story, but according to them, the pirates had already attacked:

The Navy tracked the pirates overnight after they attacked a ship called the Safmarine Asia. The French launched a helicopter from the frigate Nivose to head off the attack Tuesday night, then seized the suspected pirates Wednesday morning, the statement said.

So which is it? Did they "head off an attack" that had taken place, or did they "prevent a planned attack?" There is a huge policy difference between the two.

Details, Details...

The Navy has released 3 more pictures from the Maersk standoff since the release of the Scan Eagle pictures. One of them in particular tells a bit of a story.
Note the grouping of 3 bulletholes on the starboard window. (You can see the whole image here)

It's possible that those were outgoing rounds, but otherwise it would seem that the SEALs did not take out all 3 pirates with single-shots.

Hail to the Engineer!

CNN has filmed some interesting footage of the crew of the Alabama Maersk. The crew emphatically states that the pirates, contrary to early reports, never had control of the ship. As the bridge was being taken, Captain Phillips directed his chief engineer to take control, and the bridge controls were taken offline.

This explains why the pirates left the ship on a lifeboat with only Phillips as a prisoner. And it suggests that the one pirate the crew captured may have been overpowered when he was separated from the others while searching the engineering spaces.

Captain Phillips played his hand brilliantly, but it appears it was his chief engineer that dealt him that hand.

Every Kirk has his Scotty.

Never Waste a Good Crisis

Now that the USN has successfully rescued Captain Phillips and eliminated or captured all four pirates, we should be using the increased public awareness of the piracy problem to improve our anti-piracy policy. A few remarks:

Implications of Somali Piracy
1. Piracy in and of itself represents a threat to the economic interests of the United States. In addition to shipping companies paying out ransoms, insurance rates are going through the roof, and in some cases shipments are being re-routed, making the voyages longer and more expensive. Quite simply, piracy is an intolerable drain on commerce.

2. Although it is my opinion that the Somali piracy is organized crime, not terrorism, the success of the pirates thus far highlights weaknesses of the sort that terrorists can exploit. We should anticipate that terrorists will hijack vessels in the future, but with much more sinister intentions than holding the ship and crew for ransom. Possible terrorist missions could include threatening execution of hostages in exchange for political demands being met, causing a massive oil spill, sinking a ship in a narrow channel to block it, exploding a liquefied natural gas carrier, or attempting to collide with other vessels. It should therefore be a high priority to develop effective anti-hijacking tactics, as well as deploying technologies appropriate to this mission.

3. The limitations of the USN in dealing with piracy was demonstrated by this situation and others. Pirates are well-aware that they can succeed provided they are able to stay in possession of the captured ship and crew, allowing them to get to land.

4. The lethal violence used by the French Navy and USN may have second-order effects. On one hand, it may deter pirates into finding another line of work (this would surely happen if enough pirates met their demise that they could could count on being killed or captured). On the other hand, the pirates have already vowed revenge against US and French mariners. The gauntlet has been thrown, and over the short term, we should be prepared for an escalation of violence against US and French targets.

Developing Anti-Piracy Policies
1. Current ROE: CTF-151 will come to the aid of ships in distress and attempt to capture pirates caught in the act. This represents an evolution from previous ROE where pursuit was not authorized. Captured pirates are usually handed over to Somali authorities in Puntland, or to Kenya.

2. I agree with other commenters that the protection of US-flagged ships should be a priority for the US Navy. I am all in favor of our warships continuing to act to protect international trade in general, but, when a US-flagged ship is transiting this area, US assets should be allocated to them first, and to other traffic second. The vow of the pirates to take revenge upon US mariners should underscore this imperitive.

3. Merchant ships are generally unamred. This is not due to any international law prohibiting the carrying of arms, but rather because of legal difficulties that would arise in various destination ports. The use of small/mounted arms has been successful in preventing successful boardings, as the attempted attacks against the USNS John Lenthal and a German supply ship. The pirates use small, open skiffs to approach their targets, often having to chase them and overtake them slowly. They are relatively easy targets and will usually turn and run if fired upon. The lack of defensive arms on merchant ships is one of the principal factors enabling piracy, and is likely the lowest-cost solution (not considering legal difficulties or increases in insurance rates---i.e. legal BS).

In my opinion, arming merchant crews is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, foreign laws will likely make that impossible, and little can be done about that. It is a shame, because the purpose of law is to protect the lives and rights of people, and to facilitate efficient business. In the case of piracy, these laws are making people vulnerable while making business more difficult. These laws ought to be changed, but there is no way to "reach into" the domestic sphere of foreign states to change these laws.

Perhaps, alternatives could be considered. For example, private security firms could embark teams on merchants at one side of the transit, and disembark them on the other side. Cost, of course, would be a major factor, because this would require substantial logistical support. Another option may be to embark a small craft on which the weapons could be disembarked when the merchant makes a port call. The downside of this would be that some crew would not be available for loading/unloading operations while they "babysit" the weapons.

4. The current "area patrol" defensive tactics are clearly inadequate to deal with piracy. More effective tactics are needed. However, it must also be observed that the area is simply too large and too populated to completely lock down with any defensive tactics. Our goal should not be to stop every instance of piracy, but to deter it. Deterence will be acheived by killing and capturing enough pirates that the risk is not something that can be ignored. Therefore, our defensive tactics should be oriented towards apprehending as many pirates as possible.

5. Rather than responding to distress calls as the primary means of attempting to prevent hijackings/capture pirates, I propose a more pro-active approach. Merchant traffic should be corralled into designated corridors, chosen for their distance from heavily-fished areas. This should not be terribly difficult, because they already more or less use known shipping lanes. Those lanes might just need to be moved a little. CTF-151 and other anti-piracy vessels will then actively scout those sea lanes. Using ISR assets such as P-3 Orions, UAVs, and shipborne helicopters, vessels in those lanes should be identified. Those craft will then be subject to search, prior to the merchants arriving. If any craft is found with weapons, or especially ladders and grappling hooks, the occupants would be arrested. The motherships and skiffs should be seized, and, after checking to make sure any motherships aren't themselved captured craft, burned.

This approach poses two problems: logistical and legal. Legally, a navy cannot board a ship without consent, unless that ship flies the flag of its navy or is inside the territorial waters of that navy. So, a UN Security Council resolution will be necessary to carry out this strategy. Although, frankly, I think we'd be better off carrying out the boardings anyways. The consequences for illegally boarding some fishing boats is far less than the cost of allowing hijackings to continue.

Second, there is the logistical problem of getting out the boarding teams to the site. It will not be possible to saturate the sea lanes such that all potential pirate craft can be searched. But this is no reason not to do it. CTF-151 ships should patrol in the designated lanes, casting dragnet as they go, sprinting from craft to craft and sending out RHIBs to inspect them. Additionally, helicopter carriers like the Boxer can be used to transport small boats and crews greater distances than can be done with a frigate or destroyer. US ships should prioritize sanitizing the area ahead of US-flagged merchants.

Going forward, the DoD should take note of the kinds of platforms that are useful for sanitizing these sea lanes. As remarked earlier, we may need to develop these operations for counterterrorism at some point, as well as maritime security operations, or perhaps even protecting an amphibious operation from irregular or hybrid warfare. The more boarding teams and helicopters, and the better protected our people are, the better. And all the antiship missiles in the world aren't as useful as a well-trained sniper team.

6. A legal framework for trying pirates needs to be developed. Is this something the ICC could handle? The best option would be an international tribunal of some sort. Alternatively, I don't see any reason why Congress couldn't amend our own antipiracy statute to confer universal jurisdiction to the Federal courts as against pirates (edit: it would appear that the statute as written already does confer universal jurisdiction). I'd also be in favor of nonjudicial punishment at sea of pirates, but somehow I doubt that would happen in this day an age.

What not to do
While an ultimate solution to piracy must be on land, now is not the time to carpet-bomb Eyl or anything else we're hearing from the hawks along those lines. One thing to consider is that the pirates currently hold more than 200 hostages. There would also be a lot of collateral damage, which is bad enough on its own, but in addition, laying waste to pirate strongholds would have the 3rd-order effect of strengthening the fundamentalist terrorist insurgents to the south, possibly allowing them to sieze control of Somalia. A more responsible approach would involve an all-out nation building strategy, which no one has the resources or the stomach to follow through on.

I think our best bet is to reduce piracy through deterrence, and that the pirates will then turn to other ways to eke out a living, such as fishing and trade. If that transition is gradual, then soft-power techniques might be useful in slowly civilizing the area.

Questions About Controlling the Scene of a Hostage Situation at Sea

This post raises questions about the tactics employed in a counter-piracy hostage situation, such as the one ongoing right now. Before I get into the substance, I feel it necessary to express some reservations about going here. I think that uninvolved commenters like myself need to show deference to the people who are involved, both because we don't know the facts and because we don't know what it takes to run a command. That being said, I think the situation as it has unfolded over the last 24 hours warrants some pointed questions being raised.

My understanding is that in a hostage situation, the first order of business of the police is to isolate the hostage takers, and take tactical control of the environment surrounding the area controlled by the hostage takers. For example, police will evacuate all civilians to a safe distance, prevent any non-LEO personnel from entering the area, prevent the hostage-takers from leaving the area, occupy the area, observe with all means any activity within the area under control by the hostage-takers, and be prepared to react.

I don't know what steps the USN did to maintain tactical control over the area surrounding the Maersk lifeboat, but I think when this is over the Navy owes us all an explanation. What we do know is that Captain Phillips was able to temporarily escape his captors, get off the boat, and get into the water. Captain Phillips was taken back into pirate custody after a pirate swam after him, and after shots were fired by the pirates. This outcome suggests, to me, that the Navy did not have tactical control of the surrounding area.

Imagine, for a moment, the situation is on land. A hostage is being held inside a school, surrounded by a SWAT team. The hostage runs outside. But, no SWAT member is there to take the hostage into custody. Worse yet, as the hostage is running towards the police in the distance, one of the hostage-takers appears behind the escaping hostage and begins firing his weapon. And the police do nothing.

Unless there is something about this situation that I don't understand--and I recognize that there may well be--I find this outcome to be appalling. And our government owes us an explanation.

Specifically, I want to know:
(1) What was done to contain the pirates to the lifeboat?
(2) What methods of observation were used to observe the situation on the lifeboat? Was the boat constantly illuminated at night? Were personnel stationed close enough to the boat to observe the situation well?
(3) What plan did the Navy have in case the hostage escaped the boat? What would have been there response time?
(4) What plan did the Navy have in case they observed a weapon being discharged? What would have been their response time?
(5) What prevented the immediate elimination of all pirates on the lifeboat once the hostage was no longer on it?

and also, although it is not implicated yet, but soon may be:
(6) What was done to prevent non-Coalition platforms/personnel from entering the area isolating the lifeboat?

Because I am an uninvolved civilian, I will pose these as questions and will not speculate about the answers nor second-guess the commanders.... at least not until all the facts are known. But I think when this is all over, we are owed these answers.

Update 11 Apr 09:
We have a new fact and a rationale courtesy of the AP:

Sailors on the USS Bainbridge, which has rescue helicopters and lifeboats, were able to see Phillips but at several hundred yards away were too far to help him. The U.S. destroyer is keeping its distance, in part to stay out of the pirates' range of fire.

I am not comfortable with this. If the question is, "why wasn't the Bainbridge close enough to rescue Phillips and suppress/deter/eliminate his pursuers?" then the answer "we didn't want the Bainbridge to get shot at" is impotent. They are 4 guys with rifles; they do not get to push a US Warship (nor its helicopters [if it had any], nor its armed boarding parties) around.

This does raise some interesting questions about littoral warfare, though. Assume for a moment that returning fire is not an option; that the apparent "rule set" here is that the pirates are allowed to take pot shots at USN platforms and personnel but the USN cannot respond for fear of triggering the execution of Capt. Phillips. In the analogous SWAT situation, the police would not retreat to a distance greater than the effective range of a Kalashnikov, they would get behind cover. At sea, the only cover is the ship itself. Thus, this incident may be teaching us that a true littoral combatant needs to have armored gun positions and/or guns fired without exposed crew, and should probably also not have large, expensive, sensitive sensors or other things on deck that "don't react well to bullets." Just like insurgency at land, we are seeing the irregular warfare at sea requires armor, not speed.

Possible Escalation of the Pirate Situation

Some disturbing news:

The pirate, speaking to Reuters from Haradheere port, also said other pirates were taking a hijacked German ship, with foreign crew on board, toward the scene in the Indian Ocean where the lifeboat is floating, watched by U.S. warships.

"Knowing that the Americans will not destroy this German ship and its foreign crew, they (the approaching pirates) hope they can meet their friends on the lifeboat," said the pirate, who has given reliable information in the past but asked for his name not to be used.

{snip}

The 20,000-tonne German container vessel, Hansa Stavanger, was hijacked a week ago, about 400 miles off south Somalia, between Kenya and the Seychelles. It is thought to have 24 crew, of whom five are German.

This is a rather clever approach. Pirates know they have the advantage when they have people on a captured ship. They didn't have the luxury of that situation here, and it looked like the USN had a very strong hand to play, with the lifeboat out of fuel (or running out of fuel, depending on the report). The pirates, hundreds of miles out to sea, are in every bit as much need of rescue now as Captain Phillips. A fishing boat or skiff would never make it past the Bainbridge and USN air assets, but how do you stop a 20,000 ton ship, short of sinking it?

The Tom Clancy in me wants a SEAL team to come up underneath the ship and sabotage the shafts, stopping it dead in the water, but I have no knowledge whether we have the capability to sabotage a ship while it is underway.

Physically blocking a ship that size is not an option. Could naval gunfire disable the engines? Probably, but flooding or even fire would likely result as well. Can the crew perform damage control? Would the pirates execute a hostage if the ship was fired upon?

And that's what bothers me the most here--the implication that this may be an escalation by the pirates. Previously, hostages were simply detained for ransom. There was never any demand other than money, and there was no threat of execution if that demand for money wasn't met. The hostages would simply continue to be detained. If it is the case that the pirates have a new demand--to be allowed to rescue their comrades adrift at sea--and if this demand is not met, hostages will be executed, then the pirates will have crossed a very, very important line that so far they've stayed away from. They will have crossed from organized crime into terrorism.

I hope they understand the implications of crossing that line and fear its consequences.

Then again, with the current administration no longer describing our situation vis-a-vis terrorists as a "war," I'm not really sure what those consequences are anymore.

Unbelievable!

I've been watching FNC's coverage of the Maersk Alabama incident, and they've got LTG Tom McInerney (ret.) on making recommendations on how to deal with this incident.

His suggestion? Use the F-22.

What would it do against pirates? They'd be on patrol, and since they can fly at Mach 2, they could respond quickly. Respond and do what, you ask? Answer: strafing runs. And the good General doesn't even think the F-22 could hit the pirate skiffs, just put fire in their vicinity.

Unbelievable. How many US commanders would risk a $178 million fighter (and that's not counting "sunk costs") on a strafing run against a pirate skiff that may have SA-14s on board? Are we really so desperate to plug the F-22 in the wake of the Gates recommendation that we're making these claims?

The F-16 has the same gatling gun the F-22 has for strafing runs, and can shoot it just as accurately. You can get 10 $18 million F-16s for the price of 1 F-22. Having 10x more aircraft on patrol will improve response time a hell of a lot better than the extra .2 Mach or so of speed. And if we get unlucky and lose an F-16 to a shoulder-fired SAM, it will be a major loss, but not the fraking disaster losing an F-22 would be.

Apparently, the case for the F-22 is so weak that we need to pretend we need it as an anti-piracy weapon.

M/V John McClane?

This morning, I awoke to learn that a US-flagged cargo ship with a US crew was hijacked.

Now, we're being informed that the crew took back control of the ship. At least one pirate is in custody.

That's.... amazing. Thought that shit only happened in Die Hard movies.


Photo: A rigid hull inflatable boat leaves USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) on its way to FGS Hessen (F 221) during the Neptune Warrior training course. Neptune Warrior is a course designed to increase interoperability in NATO coalition forces. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Coleman Thompson

Bravo Zulu!

H/T: USNI Blog

China Stepping Up

Major General Jin Yinan has announced China's intention to get involved in anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden. This has the potential to be huge---for once, instead of being the UNSC member obstructing solutions to international problems, they're going to play an active part. This comes on the heels of a unanimous UNSC reslolution that renewed authorization to persue pirates into Somali waters, authorized the detention and disposition of suspected pirate vessels, and perhaps most significantly, called on member states to establish laws to enable them to prosecute those arrested.

I've been looking forward to the opportunity for the US to start working with China as a partner rather than as a rival. And for that to happen, China has to start realizing that its interests coincide with ours---in open, secure markets, regional stability, and increased connectedness. Their intention to get involved in the piracy issue means that they're starting to think about more responsibilities as a major power and less about the Taiwan issue or a potential rivalry with us. (EDIT: Galrahn beat me to it: "that might be the smell of maturity.") As this plays out, we can look forward to an increasing partnership with China, which means the looming war between us becomes less likely, and hopefully at some point we'll be able to reallocate part of that part of the defense budget to something more useful. Good times.

Thinking Strategically (Or, How Galrahn Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pirates)

Gal's given me another reason to plug Information Dissemination with two of his latest insightful posts. So seldom do we find anyone who thinks about the big picture.

I'm not going to bother quoting key passages, as these are definitely worth taking in in their entirety:

Observing the Strategic Success of US Policy Toward Somali Piracy

Are Pirates the Problem, Or the Solution?

(Related OI post: Piracy a blessing in disguise?)

Such an Odd Place...

I knew the Somali pirates were getting rich and living the glamorous life, but I didn't realize the size of the boom they're causing:

But in northern coastal towns like Haradhere, Eyl and Bossaso, the pirate economy is thriving thanks to the money pouring in from pirate ransoms that have reached $30 million this year alone.

In Haradhere, residents came out in droves to celebrate as the looming oil ship came into focus this week off the country's lawless coast. Businessmen started gathering cigarettes, food and cold glass bottles of orange soda, setting up small kiosks for the pirates who come to shore to re-supply almost daily.

Dahir said she is so confident in the pirates, she instituted a layaway plan just for them.

"They always take things without paying and we put them into the book of debts," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Later, when they get the ransom money, they pay us a lot."

For Somalis, the simple fact that pirates offer jobs is enough to gain their esteem, even as hostages languish on ships for months. The population makes sure the pirates are well-stocked in qat, a popular narcotic leaf, and offer support from the ground even as the international community tries to quash them.

"Regardless of how the money is coming in, legally or illegally, I can say it has started a life in our town," said Shamso Moalim, a 36-year-old mother of five in Haradhere.

"Our children are not worrying about food now, and they go to Islamic schools in the morning and play soccer in the afternoon. They are happy."

I find this curious because of the warlord situation there. As I see it, the warlords' primary interest is to hold onto power. That means they'd either be in on the piracy business or demanding a shit ton of "protection" money. And maybe they are. But an economic boom is empowering to the common folk. They're getting jobs, vehicles, going to school.... not exactly the picture of dependency that we've come to identify with Somalia since the 90's. They're even doing business overseas and getting wired up on the 'net--getting connected with the rest of the world.

This may seem perverse, but maybe this piracy thing is a bit of a blessing in disguise. It's hard to keep a population dependent on you when they're doing business and getting connected. No, that's not a justification, but it is food for thought, because disconnectedness is what defines danger and instability these days. Right now, it seems Somalia is too far gone to connect to the rest of the world (much like Afghanistan) and not suitable for a nation-building type program, but maybe as the seeds of connectedness are sown through this piracy, that will start to slowly change.

Silver lining or not, I still think more aggressive measures need to be taken to stop this problem.

Piracy Leading to Disruption in Int'l Trade

You know it's serious when you can't get your Wii games.

Alarmed at the growing number of attacks off Somalia, international merchant shipping is edging closer to doing the unthinkable in peace time: by-passing one of world's most vital trade routes.

Somali pirates have been plundering ships off the Horn of Africa for years, but the recent surge in attacks has spilled out into the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, threatening access to the Suez Canal.

Now big firms employed in moving everything from oil, gas and coal to toys, are urgently considering whether to travel round South Africa's Cape of Good Hope instead.

***

The alternative voyage round the Cape of Good Hope would add upwards of three weeks to a typical journey, delaying goods to buyers and increasing transport costs.

***

Giles Noakes, chief maritime security officer at BIMCO, a big industry association, said two operators, one a gas carrier and a tug operator Svitzer, a maritime logistics group, were already routing their fleets via the Cape.

"The next group that I expect to be going round the Cape are the big dry bulkers -- carriers of coal, grains and iron ore -- who also cruise at lower speeds," Noakes said.

How long are we going to let these mosquitos bite us before we spray the nest?

About Time: USN Establishes Anti-Piracy Command

Better late than never, I guess.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

U.S. Navy establishes anti-piracy command

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy has established a unit to fight Somalian pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

U.S. Central Command has formed the Maritime Security Patrol Area, comprised of air and naval assets, to battle pirates from Somalia. MPSA has been augmented by warships from allied countries and operations would be directed by Combined Task Force-150.

"A force of coalition navy warships will patrol the area, and aircraft will fly in the airspace above," Centcom said.

The new U.S. navy unit was launched in August 2008. MPSA was said to have monitored, tracked and boarded suspected pirate ships.

Real Pirates Steal Tanks? YGTBFKM!?!

Via CNN:

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- The Foreign Ministry says pirates have seized a Ukrainian-operated ship off Somalia.

The ministry says the Faina was sailing with 21 people on board under the Belize flag, though it is operated by Ukrainian managing company Tomax Team Inc.

The ministry says in a statement that the ship's captain reported being surrounded by three boats of armed men Thursday afternoon.

The ship's passengers include 17 Ukrainian citizens including the captain, as well as three Russians and one Latvian citizen.

The ministry had no information on the ship's cargo. But the Interfax news agency cited an unnamed source as saying the ship was loaded with about 30 T-72 tanks and spare parts for them.

How long until someone takes Eyl down?

Wars and Rumors of Wars

There are two emerging sensitive situations worth following in the days or weeks to come.

First, the Gulf of Aden piracy situation is has taken a disturbing twist. Apparently, an Iranian freighter sailing from China to the Netherlands arrived around Aden a few days early and was scheduled to transit the Suez a few days later than it should have needed. In addition to whatever planned detour it was taking, it was captured by Somali pirates and taken to Eyl.

Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died. "Yes, some of them have died. I do not know exactly how many but the information that I am getting is that some of them have died," Andrew Mwangura, Director of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, said Friday when reached by phone in Mombasa.

The syndicate set the ship's ransom at $2 million and the Iranian government provided $200,000 to a local broker "to facilitate the exchange." Iran refutes that it agreed to the price and has paid any money to the pirates. Nevertheless, after sanctions were applied to IRISL on September 10, Osman says, the Iranians told the pirates that the deal was off. "They told the pirates that they could not come because of the presence of the U.S. Navy." The region is patrolled by the multinational Combined Taskforce 150, which includes ships from the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.

In a strange twist, the Iranian press claims that the U.S. has offered to pay a $7 million bribe to the pirates to "receive entry permission and search the vessel." Officials in the Pentagon and the Department of State approached for this story refused to comment on the situation. Somali officials would also not comment on any direct U.S. involvement but one high-level official in the Puntland government told The Long War Journal "I can say the ship is of interest to a lot of people, including Puntland."

Thin. But worth watching. H/T: Galrahn.

The other development is at the Lebanon-Syrian border.

Syria has massed thousands of troops along its border with northern Lebanon in what officials in Beirut fear is a prelude to the first incursion since Syrian forces pulled out three years ago.

Although Damascus insists that its forces are conducting an antismuggling operation, the Lebanese Government is eyeing the moves with unease, believing that the unusual scale of the deployment has more to do with tensions between the two countries over recent sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon.

H/T: Small Wars Journal