NATO to protect ships from piracy off Somalia coast

NATO to protect ships from piracy off Somalia coast

The pirates has the better navy if they could take over a huge ship without a fight at the high sea. Two to three high speed boat could hijack a ship is not good at all.I will ram the hick out of it if I am the sea captain of the ship. Full speed ahead and zig zag all the way to hell.I will train my creww to repeal border with high presure water hose if I have to.

Yea, especially if the ship you’re attacking is an unarmed merchant or tour boat.
:rolleyes:
Will NATO Navies Stop Somali Pirates?
Friday, Oct. 24, 2008 - France notched an important victory against the pirates who plague commercial shipping off the Horn of Africa, when it arrested nine of them at sea during a raid near the Gulf of Aden.

]
But the roots of Somalia’s piracy problem lie in the breakdown of state authority on land, which is why many questioned just how effective the French Naval action â�� or the NATO patrols due to begin in the coming days â�� will be in curbing the pirates. The nine nabbed by the French, after all, were stripped of their weapons and then handed over to the very Somali authorities who have failed to keep them under control in the first place. “After obtaining assurances from the local officials in Somalia that they’d be put on trial and that their human rights would be respected, we delivered them to the custody of local authorities," said French Defense Ministry spokesman General Christian Baptiste. “This operation is sending a message to pirates in the region that continuing their activity will be getting more dangerous and expensive for them."

Perhaps, but only if the authorities in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland keep their end of the deal. And a look at the track record on controlling piracy of the authorities in Puntland and elsewhere in Somalia does little to inspire confidence. The pirates operate their increasingly lucrative industry with impunity from a number of fishing villages along the Puntland coast, where they currently hold at least 12 vessels, and more than 200 of their crew members, awaiting ransom payments. The best known of these is the Ukrainian freighter MV Faina, and its cargo of tanks and other weapons, hijacked almost a month ago, although some 73 vessels have been captured this year netting the pirates as much as $30 million in ransom payments.

Somalia has been a failed state since its degeneration into clan warfare in the 1990s following the death of the dictator of General Mohammed Siad Barre. Today, it is ruled by a fragile coalition of warlords kept in place by the Ethiopian army, which invaded with U.S. backing to drove out an Islamist authority that had, ironically, managed to tamp down piracy, but was also harboring wanted al-Qaeda figures. And some of the warlords in the current government are accused by international observers of being the real commanders of Puntland’s half-dozen main pirate groups. “Most of [the pirates:
are linked to warlords," Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenya-based Seafarers' Assistance Program, told reporters last April. “And the warlords are linked to the [government], all the way to the top."

[url=http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1853690,00.html?xid=feed-rss-netzero]MORE[/url]

Argh, Habib I tol' ya not to hit any Saudi tankers...
:eek:
Arab States Meet to Discuss Solution to Pirate Attacks
20 November 2008 - Seven Arab states, including Egypt, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are meeting in Cairo in a bid to find an effective response to the growing threat of piracy in the Red Sea.

]
Top officials from Arab states flanking the Red Sea are meeting in Cairo in an attempt to mount a joint effort to curb piracy in shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia, in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Egyptian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hussam Zaki said the piracy is an “increasingly difficult and unusual situation." The Arab League, which is also participating in the Cairo conference, condemned the situation off the Horn of Africa Wednesday with Assistant Secretary General Ahmed bin Hali complaining piracy had reached an “unprecedented level of gravity."

Conference host Egypt is increasingly concerned about the effects of the recent wave of hijackings by Somali pirates on shipping through the Suez Canal. Last year, Egypt earned more than $5 billion from the canal. Three major world shipping companies have announced they are re-routing their vessels to avoid the Horn of Africa, a step that could seriously hurt the canal. Analyst Mohammed al Shazly, a contributor to the Arab daily al Hayat, said the piracy is “catastrophic” for Egypt and other Red Sea nations: He said Egypt is seriously affected by the crisis, because revenues from the canal, along with tourism, oil exports and worker’s remittances are the four main sources of Egypt’s gross domestic product.

Yemen, he argues, which is working alongside Egypt to resolve the crisis, is also upset about having a flotilla of foreign warships off its coast. Al-Jazeera TV reports that delegates from war-torn Somalia are also attending the Cairo conference and that many participants, including the Arab League, are pushing for a political settlement in that country, including a national unity government as the “best option for putting a stop to piracy." Egyptian Admiral Mahfouz Taha Marzouk, formerly in charge of naval operations in the Red Sea, told al-Arabiya TV that “coordination between the world’s navies, in addition to installation of radar in many shipping corridors, would put a damper on piracy."

More [url:
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-11-20-voa25.cfm[/url]

See also:

Major shippers skirt Gulf of Aden to avoid pirates
Thu Nov 20, 2008 - Rampant piracy off Somalia is forcing shipping companies to avoid the Suez Canal and send cargoes of oil and other goods on a longer journey around southern Africa, industry officials said on Thursday.

]
Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk is routing some of its 50 oil tankers around the Cape of Good Hope instead and Intertanko said many other tanker firms were doing the same. Norway’s Frontline, which ferries much of the Middle East’s oil to world markets, said it was considering a similar step.

They were responding to Saturday’s spectacular capture by Somali pirates of a Saudi Arabian supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of oil, the biggest ship hijacking in history. Scores of attacks in Somali waters this year have driven up insurance costs for shipping firms and the decision to divert cargo around South Africa risks pushing up prices for manufactured goods and commodities.

“We need immediate action from governments to protect these vital trade lanes — robust action in the form of greater naval and military support with a clear mandate to engage, to arrest pirates and to bring them to trial," Intertanko said. The head of the International Maritime Organization, Efthimios Mitropoulos, warned of “a series of negative repercussions” if ships had to reroute.

He said going around the Cape added about 12 days to a typical Gulf-to-Europe voyage, delaying oil supplies, and potentially raising freight rates by 25 to 30 percent. Mitropoulos urged the U.N. Security Council to strengthen the mandate of anti-piracy forces with “clear rules of engagement” and to make states bring to justice pirates they captured.

[url=http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AK0C920081121:
PEACE ON LAND[/url]