Security

How To: Take Down Somali Pirates

The U.S. Navy destroyer Howard continues to shadow the Ukrainian vessel Faina, which Somali pirates seized last week. Faina is loaded with around three dozen T-72 tanks and other weapons reportedly bound for Kenya. "Howard is on-station," Commander Curtis Goodnight, Howard‘s skipper, told a Navy reporter. "My crew is actively monitoring the situation." The destroyer […]

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The U.S. Navy destroyer Howard continues to shadow the Ukrainian vessel Faina, which Somali pirates seized last week. Faina is loaded with around three dozen T-72 tanks and other weapons reportedly bound for Kenya. "Howard is on-station," Commander Curtis Goodnight, Howard's skipper, told a Navy reporter. "My crew is actively monitoring the situation." The destroyer has even established unspecified "bridge-to-bridge" comms with the hijacked ship.

What might the Navy do if ordered to secure the seized weapons? Two recent French anti-piracy raids might offer a preview. In one raid in April, French commandos in helicopters, operating from ships, chased pirates onto land. A sniper in one chopper shot out the engines of the pirates' vehicles; another chopper landed commandos to grab six of the startled Somalis.

In another raid in September, French commandos parachuted into the water near a hijacked yacht, under the cover of darkness, and swam a short distance to board, unseen. They shot dead one pirate, captured others and freed the yacht's owners.

So if the Pentagon decides to take out the Faina pirates, how's it going to go down? Four words: Djibouti (where U.S. Special
Operations Command has a base north of Somalia), helicopters, Navy
SEALs.

Indeed, one of Faina's captured crewmen, in an interview with a
Russian news Website, practically pleaded for the Navy commandos to come to his aid, the AP reports:

At the end, when the reporter asks whether he sees a way out, [the crewman] replies:
"You are so clever that you are understanding everything" and switches to Russian, saying "kotiki, kotiki, kotiki" — part of the word for
"seals" — an apparent reference to the possibility of an operation by special amphibious forces to rescue the hostages.

(Photo: Navy)

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