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| Africa Horn |
| Somali pirates go 0 for 4 |
| 2008-10-03 |
| KUALA LUMPUR - Armed Somali pirates attacked four ships, including an Italian crude-oil tanker, in what a maritime piracy watchdog said Friday was a "critical level" of attacks in the Gulf of Aden. "It is one of the highest number of attacks in a single day in the same area," said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur. He said the vessels were attacked on October 1 by Somali pirates armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the notorious waterway. "We are warning ships to be on high alert. Pirates are attacking ships almost every day. It is at a critical level now," he told AFP. "Three hijacked vessels were released a few days ago and it now appears this group of Somali pirates are looking for ships to hijack again." The first attack occurred at 0300 GMT when pirates armed with guns and travelling in speedboats tried to board a United Arab Emirates bulk carrier with 28 crew on board, heading from Europe to Asia. "The master took evasive maneuvers and a coalition helicopter arrived and chased the pirates away," Choong said. Less than an hour later, a gang armed with rocket-propelled grenades attempted to board a Philippine-owned chemical tanker heading from the Middle East to Asia with 12 crew on board, but was chased away by a warship. In the third incident pirates targeted a crude-oil Italian tanker but were foiled when the ship's master took evasive action. The final incident occurred when pirates armed with machine guns forced a Taiwanese container ship with 20 crew members to halt. The ship's captain deployed fire hoses to retaliate and the vessel managed to escape. Choong said it was not known if the same gang was responsible for all the attacks. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #4 Attacking those "small, lightly armed" boats isn't as easy as it sounds. First, you have two moving targets. Unless you have a halfway decent targeting computer, it's hard to hit a small boat in the water (CIWS can manage). Secondly, there are no spare crewmembers on commercial ships these days, so there aren't any available "extra bodies" to man any guns that did exist. Thirdly, no captain wants to be responsible for the death of what may be an extremely important member of his crew. The most effective means of putting an end to this is to have a half-dozen AC-130s stationed in Djibouti, and have them fly random missions over the Gulf of Aden. They can fly high enough no one can be sure if it's a C-130 or some other type of aircraft, there are enough other C-130s around in that part of the world, and they don't have to be at maximum altitude to fly efficiently. The minute there's a ship's captain screaming about a pirate attack, they can begin to home in on the area. They have the capacity to turn either a small boat or a mother ship into tiny pieces, along with whomever is manning them. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-10-03 16:30 |
| #3 A few shotguns on each ship would probably make good swimmers out of those pirates. They seem to like rubber boats. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-10-03 14:51 |
| #2 Don't go in those waters without personal protection. I don't get it. The pirates are lightly armed and they are preying on large, insured commercial vessels. It seems like the ship owners would have some Blackware types on board and the insurence companies would require it. It shouldn't take much to sink a little speed board that is only armed with pop guns. What am I missing here? |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2008-10-03 12:44 |
| #1 A coalition helicopter chased them away? Why the heck didn't a few hellfires blow them out of the water? And Obama wants NATO and the Europeans to handle the WoT? Something really smells here. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2008-10-03 12:37 |