August 11, 2008:
On August 8th, a
U.S. Navy amphibious ship, the USS Peleliu, while cruising off the north coast
of Somalia, got a distress call from a merchant ship ten kilometers away. The merchantman was under attack by pirates in
speed boats. The Peleliu promptly dispatched three armed helicopters, which
caused the pirates to flee. The merchant ship suffered some damage from
bullets, plus an RPG rocket that landed in the superstructure, but did not
explode.
This year, Somali pirates have shifted their operations to the far
north, on the Gulf of Aden (which separates Somalia from Yemen, in southern
Arabia). Over 80 percent of the pirate attacks are now taking place in the Gulf
of Aden, where heavy Red Sea traffic provides a larger number of potential
victims.
While other pirate plagued nations have navies and coast guards that can battle the piracy problem, Somalia is
without any central government, or seagoing military forces. So the
international community has been sending more and more warships to patrol the
coast.
For the last three years, an international naval patrol, CTF 150
(Combined Task Force 150, operating out of Djibouti) has patrolled the entire 3,000
kilometer long coast. But with only about fifteen ships (from half a dozen
nations), the CTF 150 has been able to
slow down the pirates, but not stop them. The USS Peleliu is not part of the
patrol, but was just passing through the area. Fortunately, the 39,000 ship normally carries about 30
helicopters, six Harrier jets, and a battalion of marines, so it had the means
to deal with pirates.
Moreover, unless this coastal patrol force was willing to send troops
ashore to kill or arrest the pirates in the land bases, the pirates will keep
playing hide-and-seek with the naval patrols, and continue to attack ships and
get away with it.