Security

Pirates Stopped by U.S. Warships (or Bad Weather)

American warships are keeping Somali pirates at bay, the U.S. admiral in charge of the pirate fight swears. Or maybe it’s just the bad weather and choppy waters keeping the hijackers home. In a bloggers’ conference call today, Rear Admiral Terry McKnight, head of the new Combined Task Force 151, says that three U.S. ships […]

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American warships are keeping Somali pirates at bay, the U.S. admiral in charge of the pirate fight swears. Or maybe it's just the bad weather and choppy waters keeping the hijackers home.

In a bloggers' conference call today,
Rear Admiral Terry McKnight, head of the new Combined Task Force 151, says that three U.S. ships under his command and the seventeen more international vessels have been successful in curbing piracy off of Somalia's coast. After a spike in the fall, hijackings are way down: just four successful raids in December, compared to twelve in November.

McKnight's ships haven't actually warded off any attacks -- or gone after any pirate ships. Nevertheless, "we've had an effect," the admiral says. "The pirates know we're out here, so they're going to try their best to avoid us."

But, McKnight (pictured) admits, the U.S. Navy isn't the only factor at work, in the Gulf of Aden.

"The other thing that has been a success for us, and always good, is the weather. [T]hese skiffs that the pirates have are not much bigger than a Boston whaler, so when the weather picks up, they tend to stay at home, and not out here," McKnight says.

Critics charge that previous Navy efforts to curb piracy in the region were too passive, to have much of an effect. And for the moment,
CTF-151 seems to be taking a similarly cautious approach. But McKnight promises that in the months to come, his sailors will go on offense against the hijackers. Kenya has agreed to take any captured pirates.
And once the legal details are worked out, McKnight says, "we will shift our operation to go -- to possibly go -- after some of the pirates and take them to Kenya. And they will be of course prosecuted in the Kenyan courts."

Meanwhile, the raids continue. And the pirates are getting more sophisticated.
In the early hours of the morning today, pirates attacked three military-protected vessels. The warships responded. And then the pirates swooped in on their real target: the Longchamp, a German tanker. It is now in the hijackers' hands.

[Photo: Navy]

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