As Somali hijackers followed through on a threat to increase attacks on the high seas, the Obama administration unveiled a four-point plan to tackle piracy in the Gulf of Aden.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for an expanded global response to piracy, saying the growing threat required new strategies to prosecute and imprison pirates, track and freeze their monetary assets and secure the release of ships still held in the region.
"These pirates are criminals, they are armed gangs on the sea, and those plotting attacks must be stopped," Clinton said.
"We may be dealing with a 17th century crime, but we need to bring 21st century assets to bear," she said at a news conference in Washington.
The announcement came after some pirates threatened to step up attacks in the aftermath of Sunday's rescue by Navy SEALs of Maersk Alabama Capt. Richard Phillips. The Maersk Alabama crew was expected to arrive back at Andrews Air Force Base late last night.
Wednesday, the gang that launched an abortive attack on a Long Island-owned ship loaded with food aid Tuesday said they were singling out American vessels and would kill their crews.
"We will seek out the Americans and if we capture them, we will slaughter them," said a 25-year-old pirate based in the Somali port of Harardhere, who gave only his first name, Ismail.
"We will target their ships because we know their flags. Last night, an American-flagged ship escaped us by a whisker," boasted Ismail, who did not take part in the attack on the Long Island-owned Liberty Sun.
Among other developments, French naval forces launched an early-morning attack Wednesday on a suspected pirate "mother ship" 550 miles east of Mombasa, seizing 11 men believed to be Somalis.
There have been at least four other hijack attacks off the Horn of Africa nation since Sunday, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a piracy watchdog. Three occurred off the east coast of Somalia Tuesday, adding to a spate of pirate activity there since April 1, IMB director Pottengal Mukundan told Newsday.
The four-point plan includes sending an envoy to a Somali donors' conference in Brussels on April 23 to work on plans to improve the situation in Somalia, which has been without an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictatorship and then turned on one another.
Clinton said the United States would continue to work with an international coalition of navies providing security in the form of military vessels in the region.
But the international group also had to consider ways to track and freeze pirate assets, she said. "It is time to eliminate the financial payoff of piracy."
Source: Newsday.com
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