Know Your Enemy

How do you tell the difference between a Somali pirate in a small boat and a largely identical, but innocent, fisherman? It all comes down to the ladders.

Pirates often take fishing gear out with them to help feed themselves, and fishermen often carry AK-47s for self protection. Grappling hooks are easily hidden.

But naval officers say that if they see a small boat with long metal ladders lashed to the deck, they know for sure the occupants have gone to sea with only one thing in mind.

Maritime patrol aircraft and helicopters flying along the Somali beach can pick out pirate action groups putting to sea and feed the information back to warship and command-centre operations rooms.

You can see the giveaway signs that this is a pirate gathering, says Andreas Kutsch, a German naval officer working as an assistant chief of staff for the European Unions anti-piracy task force.

On any given day, the United States estimates that 30 to 40 warships are involved in counter-piracy efforts from the EU, Nato and the US as well as China, Russia, India, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan.

The latter tend to concentrate on escorting convoys of their own national vessels, while the Western-led forces spread themselves across the region to protect all shipping regardless of flag. There is no overall commander, but the navies meet once a month in Bahrain and co-ordinate through an internet chatroom.

At the British base north-west of London that houses the headquarters of both the EU and Nato forces, personnel co-ordinate and monitor shipping a quarter of the world away.

Two merchant navy liaison officers, on loan from their companies, communicate with ships by e-mail and phone, pointing them towards convoys and the safest routes.

But this does not seem to be deterring the several thousand Somalis that Western military officers believe are involved in the growing piracy industry, with the numbers roughly tripling since a year ago.

Despite the risks of bad weather, high seas and being picked up by a foreign warship, the potential multimillion-dollar ransoms from ships is just too great a temptation.

Naval officers say heavy patrolling along the Gulf of Adens Internationally Recognised Transit Corridor where they hope to get a helicopter to an attacked ship within 15 minutes has been effective.

But most of the more than 15 ships and hundreds of sailors held off Somalia were taken south of Aden in the wider Indian Ocean, where navies cannot cover the vast area.

Source:shiptalk