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| Africa Horn |
| Turkish Navy takes command of Somalia anti-piracy force from US |
| 2009-05-06 |
| ISTANBUL - The Turkish Navy on Sunday took over the command of the international counter-piracy naval force CTF 151 from the U.S. Navy. Turkish Rear Adm. Caner Bener relieved Rear Adm. Michelle Howard as commander of the Combined Task Force - 151, in a ceremony held aboard Naval Support Activity Bahrain. Turkey is the second nation to command the CTF-151 established in January 2009 to fight piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean after a wave of hijackings off the coast of Somalia. In February, Turkish frigate TGC Giresun, with 263 men on board, had set sail to join CTF 151. CTF 151 is one of four international naval forces operating in the region. The others are the European Union's "EUNAVFOR Atlanta", NATO's Standing Naval Maritime Group One and French-commanded Combined Task Force 150. Its remit was to lead operations conducted by any states that might choose to put themselves under U.S. command, rather than work with NATO or the European Union. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #4 Turkey, Navy? Didn't they ship olive oil across the Med to Alexandria? |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2009-05-06 23:28 |
| #3 Everybody root for the Caribean pirates who preyed on fat Spaniard galleons. At least, the Spaniards tried to defend themselves. Nowadays, merchant ships cannot surrender fast enough. Somalis would be fools not to take advantage of these fat turkey cowards sailing under their nose... It's the law of nature that whimpering victims be slaughtered, especially when they are "protected" by Turkish moslem sympathizing turkeys... |
| Posted by: Ming the Merciless 2009-05-06 22:11 |
| #2 Exactly, gromky. "Hey, look guys! Some pirates over there are seizing a ship!" "OK. Make a note of it in the log" |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-05-06 20:52 |
| #1 It's a good thing that all these warships are basically sitting around doing nothing. Anti-piracy patrol where they can't even arrest the pirates seems like a pretty trivial place to put a substantial portion of the free world's naval strength. |
| Posted by: gromky 2009-05-06 20:34 |