Ensuring pirates don't interfere with the world sea trade off the coast of Somalia are HMS Northumberland and the EU anti-piracy task force. Identifying pirates in an area of operations spanning one million square miles though is no easy task.
Piracy in the region is a problem which has intensified since the Saudi supertanker MV Sirius Star was seized by Somali pirates last November.
An increasing number of the world's navies have been concerned about the pirates' audacity and, in December, the EU launched Operation ATALANTA, its first maritime operation to patrol and monitor the area and offer protection to shipping from similar attacks.
There are currently five European frigates and destroyers as well as support ships and air assets on station in the Somali basin. Under Op ATALANTA, this relatively light force is tasked with protecting shipping across a vast area.
Rear Admiral Philip Jones, Operations Commander for Op ATALANTA, said:
"The capture of the Sirius Star at the end of last year showed just how far off the coast these pirates can go, so the area of operations we're trying to look at for ATALANTA is about a million square miles - a huge amount of sea space. Clearly you can't police all of that with warships all of the time.
"What we're looking to do is firstly prioritise which are the highest threat areas - where we're most likely to see pirate attack - and secondly to synchronise our efforts with a whole range of other naval forces that are in the region."
Although the task force is there to protect all shipping, escorting aid under the World Food Programme is the primary purpose of the EU mission.
Lieutenant Commander Eric Aujean is the World Food Programme Liaison Officer for the task force:
"The main task of Operation ATALANTA is the protection and the escort of the World Food Programme chartered ships which bring food into Somalia," he said.
"Somalia is extremely dependent on this help. They have had several attacks on their ships before 2007. So, since [then] several countries or organisations have been trying to provide some help and to escort their ships."
Earlier this month HMS Northumberland safely escorted three World Food Programme ships into the Somali ports of Mogadishu, Bossassoo and Berbera without incident, but Lt Cdr Jaern Ruhmann of the ATALANTA Ops Room says the threat of piracy remains a very real one:
"They've got skiffs, they've got good equipment and they have obviously a good situational awareness as to what's going on," he said.
Lt Cdr Nick Gibbons, also part of the Operations team, added:
"[The pirate]'s success is through the fact that it's not overly-sophisticated so it's difficult to identify. So a small potential fishing boat with four or five people on it could one day be fishing, but tomorrow could be climbing on board a 300,000 tonne tanker - and that's the difficulty with the operation; that you just can't identify the enemy who's out there."
The Sirius Star was released in January following the payment of a $3m ransom dropped in by jet plane. With its cargo of two million barrels of crude oil, the ship was a potent reminder of why the international community is especially anxious to crack down on the pirates' lucrative line of business:
"The Gulf of Aden is a hugely significant global sea lane," said RAdm Jones. "About 25,000 ships a year pass through that sea lane carrying a very significant percentage of the world's trade and, of course, a lot of the world's oil. So it is of huge interest to a whole range of global trading nations to keep those sea lanes clear and to make sure the pirates can't interrupt that traffic."
Operation ATALANTA is just one part of the anti-piracy picture and, while the EU is performing well so far, all those involved recognise that long-term success will depend on the ability to find a political solution in Somalia which has so far proved elusive.
Source: MoD News
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