European Forces Strike Pirate Base in Somalia.

[VivaSomaliaa]

European Forces Strike Pirate Base in Somalia

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: May 15, 2012

 

NAIROBI, Kenya — The European Union, which had vowed to take a tougher stand against the scourge of Somali piracy, took the fight to the pirates’ home base for the first time on Tuesday, destroying several of their signature fiberglass skiffs as they lay on the beach in a notorious pirate den.

 

The Europeans hit via combat helicopter, with forces never actually landing in Somalia, and European officials said it was likely that therewould be more strikes in the future. “This is a fantastic opportunity,” said Lt. Cmdr. Jacqueline Sherriff, a spokeswoman for the European Union’s antipiracy force. “What we want to do is make life more difficult for these guys.”

 

Another European force spokesman, Timo Lange, said that only one helicopter carried out the assault. But residents reached by telephone in Xarardheere, the pirate den that was attacked, said more than one helicopter was involved. Some residents spoke of the deep unease they felt over the past few days as aircraft believed to be European spy planes buzzed over town and patrol boats spied from offshore, apparently in preparation for the raid.

 

“Two nights ago, they came with small speedboats to the seashore of the town, but they went back without shooting,” one resident said. Another spoke of the early-morning raid and of having his livelihood interrupted: “We were preparing to go in the sea for fishing last night, but we heard the noises of helicopters moving upstairs in our sky.” Both residents spoke by telephone from Xarardheere and were too frightened to give their names.

 

Residents also said that the European helicopter attack that strafed the pirate skiffs, which the pirates call their hunting boats, destroyed several old-fashioned Arab dhows, wooden sailboats sometimes used by the pirates to ferry supplies to captured ships.

 

In March, the European Union toughened its antipiracy mandate to allow forces patrolling the Indian Ocean to attack bases on Somali land. Before that, the forces were allowed to pursue pirates only at sea. The mandate is explicit, though, that the European forces are not supposed to step ashore. A statement from the European Union emphasized that “at no point did E.U. Naval Force ‘boots’ go ashore.”

 

European Union officials said no one was wounded in the attack. A pirate interviewed on Tuesday said the pirates had heard the sound of helicopters coming and had run away.

 

Somali pirates have hijacked hundreds of ships in the past few years, everything from a sailboat skippered by a retired British couple and rusty fishing trawlers to a 1,000-foot-long supertanker owned by the Saudi government. The pirates have netted hundreds of millions of dollars from the hijackings, money that they often reinvest in weapons and men. Recently, they have attacked ships as far away as Sri Lanka, more than 2,000 miles from home.

 

Their standard operating procedure is to swarm a vessel with a bevy of skiffs, each packed with armed men, gain control of the ship, steer it back to a pirate base like Xarardheere and then demand a ransom from the ship’s owner, the families of the crew or both.

 

Often the ransom money literally falls from the sky. The favored way of making payment these days is to drop a brick of shrink-wrapped cash from a small plane and let it drift down by parachute to the pirates.

 

Because so much of Somalia is lawless, the pirate gangs have dozens of hiding places where they can hold hostages with impunity.

 

But this year the piracy business seems to have taken a hit. Though Somali pirates are still holding around a dozen vessels and several hundred crew members, that figure is sharply reduced from a few years ago, when the pirates had dozens of captured ships under their control and nearly 1,000 seamen to ransom.

 

The combination of strengthened foreign naval patrols, an increase in prosecutions and some progress toward a stable Somali government appears to be hurting the ability of the pirates to operate. Somalia has languished without a functioning central government for more than 20 years, though in recent months the transitional government seems to have been gaining momentum and doing a better job of controlling at least the capital, Mogadishu.

 

Somali officials commended the raid on Tuesday, saying they had given the Europeans approval to take whatever measures necessary to stamp out the pirates. “The end of eradicating piracy far outweighs whatever costs involved,” said Abdulkadir Abdi Hashi, a minister in the semiautonomous Puntland state government, in northern Somalia. “Piracy is a criminal industry which has the potential of becoming a serious security problem with serious global repercussions.”

 

Some would argue it already has. Recent studies indicate that with all the insurance increases and protective measures, Somali pirates are now costing the world more than $5 billion each year.

 

It was not clear how the pirates would respond to having the tools of their trade destroyed. They possess dozens, if not hundreds, of boats, and European officials estimated that they destroyed only five on Tuesday.

 

In the past, when pirates have been raided by Navy Seals or attacked at sea, they usually did not retaliate against hostages, because keeping hostages safe and in relatively good condition is the key to big ransoms. Still, one pirate said on Tuesday, “we will try to stop this kind of attack from the deep Indian Ocean by any means.”

 

Paul Geitner contributed reporting from Brussels, and a Somali journalist reported from Mogadishu, Somalia.