CourierPostOnline.com reports:

Last week, an Indian Navy ship scored a major success in the battle with pirates off the coast of Somalia. The Indian naval ship fired upon and sank a pirate "mothership" in the Gulf of Aden.

This is how the U.S. Navy and other nations' naval ships need to deal with the violent and increasingly emboldened pirates in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean who now pose a very serious threat to world commerce. The time has come to stop capitulating to these seafaring terrorists and start destroying them.

More than 80 ships, mostly large cargo transport ships, have been hijacked off the coast of Somalia this year. Typically the Somali pirates use small, fast boats to catch up to larger cargo ships, then spray them with machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The pirates board the larger ships, take the crew hostage and then make ransom demands.

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The 11-deck-high Oceania Nautica, one of the cruise industry's highest rated vessels, ultimately was able to out run the attackers, who approached on two small skiffs. No one was injured.

Oceania spokesman Tim Rubacky says the Nautica, in the midst of a 32-night cruise from Rome to Singapore, was sailing full with 684 passengers and 400 crew on board at the time of the incident.

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The National Center for Policy Analysis writes:

This year, Somalia-based pirates have attacked more than 90 ships, seized more than 35 and currently hold 17.  Billions of dollars worth of cargo have been seized.  Some 280 crew members are being held hostage and 2 have been killed.  A multinational naval force has attempted to secure a corridor in the Gulf of Aden, through which 12 percent of the total volume of seaborne oil passes, and U.S., British and Indian naval ships have engaged the pirates by force.  Yet, the number of attacks keeps rising.

The problem is that we don't know what do with captured pirates, says the Wall Street Journal:

• By the 18th century, pirates knew exactly where they stood in relation to the law; if they were captured, they were subject to hanging.
• Severe as the penalty may now seem, it succeeded in mostly eliminating piracy by the late 19th century.
• Today, a Navy captain who takes captured pirates aboard his warship will have a brig in which to keep them securely detained, and instantaneous communication through which he can obtain higher guidance and observe the rule of law.
• In March 2006, the U.S. Navy took 11 pirates prisoner, 6 of whom were injured, and not wanting to set a precedent for trying pirates in U.S. courts, the State Department turned to Kenya to do the job.

Moreover, there just seems to be no controlling legal authority.  Title 18, Chapter 81 of the United States Code establishes a sentence of life in prison for pirates, but is only enforceable against pirates who attack U.S.-flagged vessels. Under Article 110 of the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Convention naval ships are required to send over a boarding party to find out if pirates are in fact pirates, says the Journal.

Source: National Center for Policy Analysis

Captain Mahmoud Hammad, safe and sound back in Cairo after his 23-day pirate ordeal. 

MSNBC reports:

Egyptian Captain Mahmoud Hammad quickly dispelled any notion that Somali pirates treat their captives well.       

"Any movement and they would put a gun to our heads or in our sides," he said of the pirates who seized his ship. "Every second, we didn't know what would happen next." 

Hammad was transporting a cargo of cement from Karachi to Djibouti with his 24 shipmates aboard the Mansoura, an Egyptian-owned, Panama-flagged ship, when pirates struck.

"On the third of September at 7:20 a.m., pirates surrounded us in two small boats, seven men to a boat. When we saw them, we rang the alarm bell to warn the crew."

More on MSNBC.com

The Associated Press reports:

BERLIN (AP) — A cruise ship will evacuate passengers before sailing past the Somali coast and fly them to the next port of call to protect them from possible pirate attacks, German cruise operator Hapag-Lloyd said Tuesday.

An official with the European Union's anti-piracy mission said separately that it would station armed guards on vulnerable cargo ships — the first such deployment of military personnel during the international anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.

The MS Columbus cruise ship will drop off its 246 passengers Wednesday at the Yemeni port of Hodeidah before the ship and some of its crew sail through the Gulf, the Hamburg-based cruise company said in a statement.

The passengers will take a charter flight to Dubai and spend three days at a five-star hotel waiting to rejoin the 150-meter (490-foot) vessel in the southern Oman port of Salalah for the remainder of a round-the-world tour that began in Italy.

Hapag-Lloyd said the detour was a "precautionary measure," given rampant piracy off the coast of lawless Somalia that recently has targeted cruise ships as well as commercial vessels, including a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million in crude and a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weapons.

Pirates last week fired upon the M/S Nautica — a cruise liner carrying 650 passengers and 400 crew members — but the massive ship outran its assailants. Other ships have not been so lucky. Pirates have attacked 32 vessels and hijacked 12 of them since NATO deployed a four-vessel flotilla on Oct. 24 to escort cargo ships and conduct anti-piracy patrols.

The Hapag-Lloyd cruise company planned the detour for its passengers in order to heed a German Foreign Ministry travel warning, after the German government denied the cruise company's request for a security escort through the Gulf, company spokesman Rainer Mueller said. As long as the travel warning is in effect, he said, "we won't travel through the Gulf of Aden with passengers."

A U.S. Navy official said, however, that while the danger of a pirate attack was significant, it was not advising ships to avoid transiting the Gulf.

"We are advising all ships to transit through the international traffic corridor within the Gulf of Aden," said Lt. Nathan Christensen, a Bahrain-based spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, referring to a security corridor patrolled by the international coalition since August.

Some 21,000 cargo ships a year — or more than 50 a day — cross the Gulf of Aden, which links the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, international agencies have said. The growing chaos in impoverished Somalia, which has had no effective government for nearly two decades, has allowed an Islamic insurgency to flourish in the country while speedboat bandits attack ships offshore.

The EU launched its anti-piracy mission five days early on Tuesday, before it takes over for the NATO ships next Monday. The EU mission will involve six ships and up to three aircraft patrolling at any one time, and will station armed guards aboard the most vulnerable cargo vessels, such as ships transporting food aid to Somalia, according to the British naval commander in charge of the mission.

"We would seek to place vessel protect detachments on board World Food Program ships transiting to Somalia," British Rear Admiral Philip Jones told a news conference in Brussels. "They are the most vulnerable ships of all, and the best deterrence is achieved by having such a detachment on board."

The NATO anti-piracy mission has also focused on escorting the U.N. aid agency's chartered vessels, helping some 30,000 tons of humanitarian aid reach Somalia since Oct. 24.

In addition, about a dozen other warships from the U.S. 5th Fleet based in Bahrain, as well as from India, Russia and Malaysia and other nations are patrolling in the area.

The Russian navy will soon replace its warship in the region with another from a different fleet, navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said Tuesday in Moscow.

The missile frigate Neustrashimy, or Intrepid — deployed from Russia's Northern Fleet after pirates seized the Ukrainian ship in September — has helped thwart at least two pirate attacks, Dygalo said. It will remain in the region through December and be replaced by a ship from Russia's Pacific Fleet.

Jones welcomed an offer from Japan to contribute a vessel to the one-year EU mission. It is the European Union's first naval endeavor, though the bloc has conducted 20 peacekeeping operations.

Britain, France, Greece, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands will contribute at least 10 warships and three aircraft, with contingents rotated every three months.

Xinhua News Agency reports:

A Shanghai shipping company has rewarded 30 of its seamen with 10,000 U.S. dollars each after they successfully fought off a pirate attack off Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. 

Each crew member of the cargo ship, Zhenhua 4, was being rewarded for their bravery and courage, said Guan Tongxian, president of Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery Co. 

The crew received the reward in a commendation ceremony at Changxing Island Port, after their vessel returned to Shanghai on Thursday morning to be welcomed by crowds of people. 

Nine pirates armed with rocket launchers and heavy machine guns boarded the ship on Dec. 17. The crew locked themselves in cabins, using fire hoses and self-made firebombs to keep the attackers at bay for six hours. 

Foreign warships and helicopters were contacted and helped Chinese seamen beat back the pirates later. No one was injured in the attack.

Captain Peng Weiyuan, 57, attributed their success to careful training. 

Peng began a drill to fend off a possible pirate attack 10 days before the ship entered the Somali waters. 

 China sent two navy destroyers and a supply ship to the Gulf of Aden on Dec. 26 to protect Chinese civilian vessels and crews, including those from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and foreign vessels on request. The vessels arrived in the gulf on Jan. 6.

Source

 

Danish warship the Absalon, patrolling in the Gulf of Aden, stopped yesterday an attack by pirates against a Chinese freight ship, which had sent out a distress call.

The Absalon confiscated weapons of seven pirates, who had fired on the freighter, Denmark’s navy said late yesterday on its Web site. The Absalon and a U.S. warship offered medical aid to possible injured personal at the Chinese vessel, which was declined, according to the navy statement.

Source

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Two Japanese naval vessels set sail today to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia ahead of a debate in parliament over a law that would broaden their rules of engagement.  

The two warships, each carrying about 200 crew members and two helicopters, will escort vessels carrying Japanese cargo or passengers through the Gulf of Aden, said a spokesman at Japan’s defense ministry on the condition of anonymity.  

Source

For the first three months of 2009, Somalia's notorious pirates faded from the headlines as a massive international naval force moved in, and many observers thought the pirates were running scared. 

Not so fast: the pirates have hijacked at least five vessels since Saturday.

Using a new strategy, they are operating further away from warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden. And they no longer have to contend with the choppy waters that always plague the seas off Somalia in the early part of the year.

Source

NAIROBI, Kenya – In a riveting high-seas drama, an unarmed American crew wrested control of their U.S.-flagged cargo ship from Somali pirates Wednesday and sent them fleeing to a lifeboat with the captain as hostage.

The destroyer USS Bainbridge, one of a half dozen warships that headed for the area, arrived at the scene Thursday morning a few hours before dawn, said Kevin Speers, a spokesman for the company that owns the Maersk Alabama. He said the boat with the pirates was floating near the ship, the first with an American crew to be taken by pirates off the Horn of Africa.

Speers said officials were waiting to see what happens when the sun comes up. Crew members had been negotiating with the pirates Wednesday for the return of the captain.

A family member said Capt. Richard Phillips surrendered himself to the pirates to secure the safety of the crew.

"What I understand is that he offered himself as the hostage," said Gina Coggio, 29, half sister of Phillips' wife. "That is what he would do. It's just who he is and his responsibility as a captain."

Details of the day's events emerged sporadically as members of the crew were reached by satellite phone, providing a glimpse of the maneuvering.

Source

Somali pirates released a German freighter after a ransom was paid Monday, nearly four months after the ship was seized in the Indian Ocean, a European Union naval spokesman said.

British Royal Navy Cmdr. John Harbour said the 20,000-tonne Hansa Stavanger, taken 400 miles off the southern Somali port of Kismayu on April 4, was released several hours after the payment was made.

"She put to sea on her own steam and she is continuing out to sea under the protection of European naval force units," he said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement it was "with great relief" that learned of the ship's release.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, too, was "happy and relieved," a German government spokeswoman said.

"She hopes that the released crew members and their families can recover as quickly as possible from the stress and emotional strain of the past weeks," the spokeswoman said on customary condition of anonymity.

Harbour said the EU did not get involved in ransom deals and he could not confirm reports that $2.7 million had been paid. He was reached at the headquarters of the EU's anti-piracy mission in Northwood, near London.

Frank Leonhardt, head of the Hamburg-based shipping company Leonhardt & Blumberg, said in a statement that he had spoken with the crew by telephone and they were "doing well."

He said the ship would continue to Mombasa, where it would be met by representatives from the company, and that the crew members would be flown to their homes "as quickly as possible."

He said the ordeal had been "seemingly endless" for the crew members and company.

"In the extremely difficult ransom negotiations with the pirates, my primary responsibility was always the safe release of the 24 crew members of the MV Hansa Stavanger."

He did not give any other details on the ransom and nobody could be reached at the company by telephone to provide further details.

The ship had a multinational 24 member crew: five Germans, three Russians, two Ukrainians, two Filipinos and 12 Tuvalus.

By Monday evening, a small EU team had boarded the vessel with a doctor to check over the crew members, but Harbour said initial indications were that everyone was in good condition.

"Everyone is accounted for, and there appears to be no major problem medically," he said.

Pirates in the area have conducted more than 100 attacks this year and are currently holding about a dozen vessels.

Source

NAIROBI (AFP) – Somali pirates attempted to storm the French navy's 18,000 tonne flagship in the Indian Ocean after mistaking it for a cargo vessel, the French military said on Wednesday.

The crew of La Somme, a 160-metre (525-foot) command vessel and fuel tanker, easily saw off the brazen night-time assault by lightly armed fighters on two lightweight skiffs and captured five pirates, a spokesman said.

"The pirates, who because of the darkness took the French ship for a commercial vessel, were on board two vessels and opened fire with Kalashnikovs," Admiral Christophe Prazuck said in Paris.

La Somme is the French command vessel in the Indian Ocean, overseeing French air, sea and land forces fighting Somali pirates and hunting terrorists under the banner of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom.

Officers on the ship have directed commando operations to free French hostages in the hands of Somali pirates.

The pirates tried to flee when they realised their mistake but were pursued by French forces who, after an hour-long chase, caught one of the skiffs, Prazuck said.

On it they found five men but no weapons, water or food as the pirates had apparently thrown all of the boat's contents overboard, the spokesman said.

A Western official at sea in the area, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said that there had been an exchange of fire between the warship and the pirate launches.

"One of the skiffs managed to get away in the night because La Somme was busy with the first pirate boat," he said.

"Despite the arrival of other vessels, they haven't yet managed to find the second boat," he said, adding that many warships in the area were busy hunting another group which attacked a cargo ship off the Seychelles on Sunday.

[More at Yahoo! News]