Week in review: the war on pirates

"An Early Military Victory for Obama" declared The Washington Post after US navy snipers on board a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Bainbrdge, shot three young Somali pirates in a lifeboat and secured the release of Capt Richard Phillips, five days after he had been taken hostage during a hijack attempt on a US cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama. "It was one of the earliest tests of the new American president - a small military operation off the coast of a Third World nation. But as President Bill Clinton found out in October 1993, even minor failures can have long-lasting consequences. "Clinton's efforts to land a small contingent of troops in Haiti were rebuffed, for the world to see, by a few hundred gun-toting Haitians. As the USS Harlan County retreated, so did the president's reputation. "For President Obama, last week's confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public." An operation led by French commandos on Friday resulted in the release of four hostages but the death of the captain of the hijacked yacht and two pirates. "While those operations gained international attention, there have been dozens of attacks so far this year. Experts say it will take an international effort to combat the rising number of attacks," CNN reported. " 'In our view, what France and the US has done is exactly the right thing for a flag state to do, and if all flag states were to take that kind of robust action against the pirates we would not have the problems of Somali piracy to the extent that we have today," said Capt Pottengal Mukundan, director of the piracy reporting center at the International Maritime Bureau." AFP said: "Somali pirates attacked an American freighter with rockets to 'destroy' the ship in revenge for an operation that freed a US captain last weekend, one of their commanders said Wednesday. "The freighter escaped the attack late Tuesday, but more vessels have fallen into the hands of marauding Somali bandits. " 'This attack was the first against our prime target,' pirate commander Abdi Garad told AFP of the attack on the Liberty Sun late Tuesday. 'We intended to destroy this American-flagged ship and the crew on board but unfortunately they narrowly escaped us. " 'The aim of this attack was totally different. We were not after a ransom. We also assigned a team with special equipment to chase and destroy any ship flying the American flag in retaliation for the brutal killing of our friends.' " An editorial in The Baltimore Sun said that the operation to free Capt Phillips, "exemplifies the challenge of asymmetrical warfare, a threat the US increasingly is encountering in hot spots around the world. From pirates in Somalia to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, adversaries are challenging America's overwhelming conventional military superiority with unconventional weapons and tactics such as hostage-taking, suicide bombs and assassinations. Last week, the fleet's big guns were useless against the pirates' tiny lifeboat because they couldn't shoot while Mr Phillips was aboard. "And though folks back home were thrilled by the ultimate success of the rescue, the episode also showed how difficult it is to counter such threats. The Navy doesn't have enough ships to protect every vessel; even if it did, the cost would be prohibitive. President Barack Obama, who kept quiet during the standoff, showed toughness and resolve, but he can't be expected to get personally involved after every attack. And continuing to pay huge ransoms for crews and cargos, as shipowners have been doing, will only embolden the marauders." But the Associated Press noted: "The pirates' primary concerns, however, are economic, and they have no interest in escalating violence. "Pirates armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades typically speed toward a ship in skiffs and use ropes and hooks to get aboard without shooting. Within days, a ransom of $1 million to $2 million is delivered, by sea or air, and the ship and crew are released. "No shot is fired. No one is harmed. Hostages have even told of being fed 'sumptuously,' with pirates billing the shipping companies for the food and drinks. "That, and the ransom, are paid by insurance companies. Last year, premiums for passage all along the East African coast shot up in August and September when there was an increase in hijackings, then fell in January when bad weather saw little pirate activity. Premiums are expected to rise again with the latest spike." Christian Science Monitor reported: "As the crew of the Maersk Alabama celebrated the return of Capt Richard Phillips Sunday, Somalia's radical Islamists praised the dead or captured pirates as mujahideen, or 'holy warriors'. Meanwhile, self-described pirates told reporters by cellphone that they would be more violent with hostages next time. " 'Every country will be treated the way it treats us,' Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship in the central Somali port of Gaan, told the Associated Press by phone. 'In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying. We will retaliate for the killings of our men.' "Even Vice Adm William Gortney, head of the US Naval Central Command, told a Pentagon press briefing Sunday, 'This could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it.' " The columnist, William Pfaff, wrote: "Somalian piracy is a nasty little affair in which hundreds of foreign seafarers have been made prisoner, but the only ones who have died did so during efforts to rescue them. "But things are getting out of hand. The pirates now threaten revenge. They haven't killed anybody. At this writing, they hold some 200 hostages. As Obama indicated, half the Nato navies seem on the way to chase fishing boats in Somalian waters and the Gulf of Aden. "Quoting the encyclopedias on Barbary pirates and US Marine Corps lore about the Tripolitan War makes good newspaper stories. But the Marines, and the Tripoli war's settlement in 1805, did not put an end to piracy on the Mediterranean Barbary Coast; American commerce was being raided as late as 1815. Maybe somebody should tell the president about that." In an editorial, The Boston Globe pointed to the historical roots of the problem that is now grabbing the headlines. "The ultimate cause of the pirate crisis in the Gulf of Aden and a swathe of the Indian Ocean was the collapse of the last effective Somali government in 1991. The civil wars and foreign interventions that followed have turned Somalia into the epitome of a failed state - and most of its people into paupers. "The pirate trade grew from two sources: economic desperation and the anger of Somalis at foreign - mostly European - fishing trawlers taking $300 million per year worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster out of Somali waters. That anger only grew when the tsunami of 2005 washed leaking barrels of radioactive materials and other hazardous waste onto Somali shores, sickening the locals. To Somalis, it didn't matter that shady European firms may have paid off a warlord to dump the waste. The problem was that Europeans were exploiting Somalia's inability to protect its waters and its people. "Once initial harassing actions by local fishermen against foreign boats intruding in Somalia's waters were transformed into crimes of piracy, the anarchy of Somalia became a crisis of international law and order. The only long-term remedy will come through a stable government and economic development that can relieve Somalia's crushing poverty."

pwoodward@thenational.ae