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from stratfor.com
The U.S. Navy seized a suspected pirate ship off the coast of Somalia on
Jan. 21 after receiving a report of pirate activity in the area. This
overt U.S. action indicates Washington’s continued interest in
controlling the lawlessness in and around the Horn of Africa, including
Somalia, which threatens to become a breeding ground for terrorists.
The incident began Jan. 20, when two speedboats operating from a mother
ship 200 miles off the coast of central Somalia attacked the
Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier MV Delta Ranger. From one of the small
boats, three men armed with machine guns opened fire at the Delta
Ranger’s bridge. When the attackers closed in on the carrier and
attempted to board, the carrier escaped by increasing speed and taking
evasive action. Eventually, the speedboats gave up the chase and
returned to their mother ship.
The attack prompted the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to send out an alert, which was received by U.S.
naval units in the area. Later that day, the USS Winston S. Churchill
(DDG-81), an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, intercepted a
suspicious vessel, a dhow towing two small boats, in the Indian Ocean
off the coast of Somalia. The Churchill followed the dhow throughout the
day and night.
The next morning, after the dhow’s crew had ignored repeated attempts to
contact the vessel over ship-to-ship radio, the Churchill maneuvered
aggressively to stop it. When this failed, the destroyer fired warning
shots across the vessel’s bow. The dhow stopped approximately 54 miles
from the Somalian coast, but continued ignoring radio demands to send
its crew over to the Churchill on the small boats it had in tow. More
warning shots were fired and the dhow finally established radio contact.
After the dhow’s master began sending his crew over in the small boats,
a team from the Churchill boarded the dhow and seized a cache of small
arms. Twenty-six crew members – 16 Indians and 10 Somalis – were
transported to the Churchill and detained for questioning. The ship’s
master claimed that pirates had boarded the dhow off of Mogadishu and
forced his crew to participate in the attack.
Following the November 2005 attack against the cruise ship Seabourn
Spirit 100 miles from the Somalian coast, the International Chamber of Commerce
advised merchant vessels to stay at least 230 miles from shore. Given
that the attack against the MV Delta Ranger occurred 200 miles off the
coast – 100 miles farther out than the Spirit attack – it appears that
Somalian-based pirates are undaunted by attempts to limit their
activities. The IMB reported that 38 incidents have occurred in the
region since March 2005, including at least two off of Somalia since the
MV Delta Ranger attack.
Somalia effectively has had no government since warlords ousted a
dictatorship in 1991. It is under conditions like these that militant
groups usually flourish – a fact that has not escaped the U.S. government. The U.S. military
maintains a small presence in the region – 1,400 troops in the Combined
Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA). Headquartered at the
former French Foreign Legion base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, the
CJTF-HOA publicly emphasizes its support role for units passing though
to conduct exercises and humanitarian missions. Its real mission,
however, is to prevent groups such as al Qaeda from establishing in the
region. Reports surfaced in May 2005 that a small contingent of U.S.
Marines had landed in Somalia to search for suspected terrorists– though the U.S. military denied any such action.
Regardless of whether Marines actually landed in Somalia in May,
however, the frequent – but rarely mentioned – deployment of U.S.
Special Operations units to the region is indicative of the true U.S.
interest in the area.
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