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.

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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.