Arizona Daily Star
December 2, 2007
20 Navies Join Forces To Ensnare Pirates Off Lawless Somali Coast
By Associated Press
ABOARD THE BABUR, Arabian Sea — Pirates from two small skiffs seized the crew of a Japanese vessel off anarchic Somalia's coast. American forces fired on the skiffs and destroyed them. Now the navies of the U.S. and 19 other countries are after bigger prey.
The U.S.-led coalition working to secure sea lanes beset by pirates believes skiffs like the ones used in the attack on the Japanese ship must have come from elusive "mother ships."
"The small boats which are used for piracy could not travel" from shore as far into the ocean as ships have been attacked, said Commodore Khan Hasham of Pakistan, one of the U.S. allies in the anti-piracy operation. "So they needed a mother ship from which the pirates could launch skiffs."
Aboard the Pakistani navy ship Babur, Pakistani special forces load their rifles and meticulously go through their drills, readying themselves to board suspicious vessels and search for weapons. U.S. Navy officers aboard swap theories with their Pakistani counterparts about where the mother ships could be.
Operation is sensitive
Coalition officials are reluctant to name all the countries involved or the number of warships involved because of security concerns, and because cooperating with the U.S. is a delicate political issue in the tense oil states of the Persian Gulf.
This week, Pakistani sailors on the Babur and Americans on the USS John Leventhal waved at each other across the waves during a refueling exercise, their captains chatting over short wave radio.
Their patrols address a growing problem. The International Maritime Bureau has recorded 31 attacks off Somalia this year but believe many more go unreported.
The 31 includes the seizure a month ago of a Japanese tanker carrying as much as 40,000 tons of highly explosive benzene in the Gulf of Aden.
Initially, American intelligence agents worried terrorists from Somalia's Islamic extremist insurgency could be involved and might try to crash the boat into an offshore oil platform or use it as a gigantic bomb in a Middle Eastern port.
When the Japanese vessel was towed back into Somali waters and ransom demanded, the coalition was relieved to find it was just another pirate attack.
The more recent attack on a separate Japanese vessel occurred about 85 nautical miles from Somalia in the busy lanes used by boats entering the Suez Canal — too far for the two small boats carrying pirates to have come from shore.
The pirates boarded the Japanese vessel before their skiffs were destroyed and remain aboard.
The U.S. Navy has in the past persuaded pirates to abandon ships they have boarded and hoped to do so in the case of the Japanese vessel — though that might be complicated now that the pirates no longer have skiffs on which to leave.
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