Pirates seized after threatening French navy ship

[Questor]

(CNN) -- The French Navy said they seized 11 pirates Sunday after they apparently mistook a French military vessel for a commercial ship and made a run at it.

Two pirate assault boats approached the Nivose "at great speed," Capt. Christophe Prazuck said, but a French helicopter intervened before the attackers had time to fire at the French navy ship.

The helicopter fired warning shots, he said.

The pirates, who had a mother ship as well as the two assault boats, are being held for questioning on the Nivose, Prazuck said. The vessels were carrying AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, but the pirates did not fire, he said.

The incident took place about 1,000 km (620 miles) east of Mombasa, Kenya, at 8:30 a.m. local time (0430 GMT) he added.

In the past three weeks, the Nivose has intercepted 24 suspected pirates as part of a European Union anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia, which has become a piracy hotspot.

Over the past year, more than 100 suspected pirates have been picked up, Prazuck said. Of that total, 27 have been released, and more than 70 taken to jail in France, handed to authorities in Somalia or taken to Kenya under an EU agreement with the government in Nairobi.

The Nivose seized three other suspected pirates Thursday morning, the French military spokesman said, but released them the next day for lack of evidence.

But a day later, the Seychelles coast guard picked up the same three men. They claimed they were fishermen, but had no license to fish in the Seychelles exclusive economic zone, Prazuck said.

Pirates seized a ship that was carrying wheat and used vehicles to Mogadishu, Somalia, on Saturday, according to NATO, which also patrols the area.

The ship, the Almezaan, now appears to be heading for a Somali village called Harradera, known as a pirate base, Cmdr. Chris Davies told CNN.

The ship did not send a distress signal until 4 a.m. Sunday, 18 hours after it was hijacked in the Indian Ocean, he said. No NATO ships were in the area at the time, he added.

The Panamanian-flagged ship had a crew of 18 Indians as of April 2008, the last listing for it on the Web site of the International Transport Workers' Federation.

Pirates also hijacked a British-owned bulk carrier in the Indian Ocean. The MV Ariana was carrying 35,000 tons of soya about 250 nautical miles (287 miles) northwest of the Seychelles when it was seized around dawn.

The crew members are Ukrainians and they are not believed to be harmed, NATO said. It is unclear how many crew members were aboard the vessel and how it came to be attacked. NATO said it was unaware of ransom demands or any threats against those aboard.

NATO said a European Union Protection Aircraft has been deployed to monitor and track the MV Ariana, which is making its way toward Somalia -- the epicenter of the pirate industry.

Piracy has been soaring off the coast of eastern Africa -- particularly Somalia, which has not had an effective government since 1991.

Somali pirates have defied foreign navies patrolling the waters and have collected large ransoms from shipping companies. Ransoms started out in the tens of thousands of dollars and have since climbed into the millions.

Here is a picture of the Nivose:


How do you mistake that for a commercial ship? Wouldn't the gun give it away?

[TithonusSyndrome]

I'd almost certainly think so, but if pirates are dumb enough to fall for this, then some token effort into concealing weapons and placing phony cargo on deck would go a long ways towards duping even more pirates into trying this sort of stunt and might even serve as a more effective deterrent if word gets around the pirate community that such ships are out there.

[Thanas]

Chances are the pirates were high on Khat.

[salm]

Eh, Kath is a pretty mild drug. I would have guessed it was dark but the article says it was 8:30 in the morning.

[Isolder74]

Perhaps we should bring back Q-ships.

[Thanas]

Eh, Kath is a pretty mild drug.

Not when mixed with speed or coke.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If they're approaching from the stern at high speed with the ship's exhaust blowing into their faces and suffering from lots of vibration and spray in their small boats, they're probably going to mistake her from behind for a factory trawler, which has a similar superstructure and cleared deck aft when viewed from behind:

[phred]

How do you mistake that for a commercial ship? Wouldn't the gun give it away?

I'm thinking they were approaching from astern. Also if they were coming from the West the glare off the ocean might have obscured the profile a little

[weemadando]

Having seen one of this class in harbour (HAB thread w/pics here), I have to say that if you don't see the main gun you aren't going to think it's a naval ship (aside from the whole "gray paint" thing. It really does look like a smallish industrial fishing vessel.

[Lonestar]

Some folks in the Navy Blogosphere are suggesting that the French Frigate was using deceptive lighting to make it appear to be a commercial ship.

[tim31]

Oh, those cunning frogs. IT'S A TRAP!

Is there going to come a point where someone is going to start clearing out pirate bases, or are the hands of powers-that-be really that tied? I know someone asks this every Somali pirate thread(and haven't there been a lot of them lately), but the question still stands.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Oh, those cunning frogs. IT'S A TRAP!

Is there going to come a point where someone is going to start clearing out pirate bases, or are the hands of powers-that-be really that tied? I know someone asks this every Somali pirate thread(and haven't there been a lot of them lately), but the question still stands.

Simply going in and clearing out the pirates is legally dubious because technically Somalia exists in the same sense as any other country, and sending military forces onto its sovereign territory without elaborately worked out agreements is against international law and so on. The Somali government, such as it is, would probably agree to let a foreign power stomp around the coast beating up pirates, but the big barrier in front of that is none of the great powers seriously giving a shit. Like, the pirates are in the news, and they're a hassle, but they only intercept a pretty tiny fraction of the ships transiting the Gulf of Aden, and the upshot is usually an insurance company paying a ransom and the ship and crew go on their way. Any military operation aimed at clearing the pirates would be dramatically more expensive than the actual cost of the piracy. Another issue is that many ships are not flagged under their actual country of origin, and the crews are also often from still other countries. The Maersk Alabama was a rare case in that it was American flagged and American crewed (apparently because Maersk does a lot of shipping for the DoD and they prefer it that way) and look at how that held our attention. But generally it's hard to see the US government give a shit about an freighter sailing under the Panamanian flag with a Filipino crew, even if it's owned by an American.

Token efforts are being made, which are actually pretty effective because the pirates are incapable of standing up to any kind of military force, but these can be more exactly seen as a response to popular awareness of the Somali pirate problem, than as a response to the problem in itself.

If the Somali pirates somehow became so effective that significant amounts of shipping started to go the long way around Africa, with the attendant increases in costs, then you'd quickly see a serious military effort that would sweep the pirates out pretty effectively. But as it is they're not getting that done, so it's not happening yet.

[tim31]

So we've already seen a cruise ship repel pirates recently, and more often than not freighter/tanker crews will make a stand with firefighting equipment. But would the companies that own these ships actually save money on insurance premiums with hired guns? Or is that a legality issue too?

[The Yosemite Bear]

Maybe they had listened to Rush and expected the French to automatically surrender....

[Mr Bean]

How hard would it be to rig up a few Q-ships? Nothing to fight off the Kriegsmarine mind you. Lets say equipment in the 14.7mm-40mm. IE some field mounted MK 19 Grenade launchers, some Browning .50's Put then aboard a conventional transport freighter and wait for Pirates to attack. You should be able to knock together a few mutually supporting Firing positions, some new crew-quarters (Hell we have them, modified Cargo containers, making them water-tight and stick them in the load) for the weapons crew and have them ride along doing standard cargo runs.

[weemadando]

How hard would it be to rig up a few Q-ships? Nothing to fight off the Kriegsmarine mind you. Lets say equipment in the 14.7mm-40mm. IE some field mounted MK 19 Grenade launchers, some Browning .50's Put then aboard a conventional transport freighter and wait for Pirates to attack. You should be able to knock together a few mutually supporting Firing positions, some new crew-quarters (Hell we have them, modified Cargo containers, making them water-tight and stick them in the load) for the weapons crew and have them ride along doing standard cargo runs.

The problem is always escalation. It's one thing to be fighting the Kriegmarine in this manner when you are pretty damn certain that the U-boats are just going to attempt to sink every damn ship anyhow. But when you start sending a few Q-ships out, then what happens when the pirates start treating every vessel likes it's a Q-ship? At the moment, for all their fucking craziness they are still being fairly restrained in their tactics and haven't just been murdering every sailor on board or firing RPG salvos into the ships for the most part.

[CJvR]

Well this is a bit better than the Portugal contribution earlier in the week which was almost as frightening as a note from the UN.

[Samuel]

Isn't a bigger problem with Q ships that they are so rare AND the attacks so infrequent that it isn't a deterent?

[FaxModem1]

Is it just me or are Pirates appearing a lot in the news lately?

[Stuart]

How hard would it be to rig up a few Q-ships? Nothing to fight off the Kriegsmarine mind you. Lets say equipment in the 14.7mm-40mm. IE some field mounted MK 19 Grenade launchers, some Browning .50's Put then aboard a conventional transport freighter and wait for Pirates to attack. You should be able to knock together a few mutually supporting Firing positions, some new crew-quarters (Hell we have them, modified Cargo containers, making them water-tight and stick them in the load) for the weapons crew and have them ride along doing standard cargo runs.

The Thai Navy did that in the late 1970s when the piracy problem was in the South China Sea and the victims were the boat people. Just take a standard pleasure craft and fit it with a .50 or a Mk.19. It sort of worked but wasn't really that impressive, mainly because the pirates switched tactics and identified craft as targets before doing anything hostile. Helicopter patrols proved far more effective - hence the Chakkrinareubet.

The problem is always escalation. It's one thing to be fighting the Kriegmarine in this manner when you are pretty damn certain that the U-boats are just going to attempt to sink every damn ship anyhow. But when you start sending a few Q-ships out, then what happens when the pirates start treating every vessel likes it's a Q-ship? At the moment, for all their fucking craziness they are still being fairly restrained in their tactics and haven't just been murdering every sailor on board or firing RPG salvos into the ships for the most part.

That argument can be applied to any countermeasure (its the classic argument for doing nothing) but here a few seconds simple thought should tell you why it isn't appropriate here. The pirates aren't in this to sink ships and terrorize the seas, they're in it to make money safely. If it becomes too dangerous, they stop because they don't want to die. If the practical attacks destroy the ships they are attempting to hijack, they stop because they want to make money and a sinking hulk is worth nothing. In fact the shipping companies would prefer it if the pirates did sink the vessels, that way they get paid insurance money instead of having to pay ransoms. As with stopping most crimes, the key to ending a crime wave is making the criminals believe that the game isn't worth the cost and the chance of getting caught is too high.

The piracy problem isn't new (obviously) is been around for a long time and its a fugitive industry. It goes to where the risks are lowest and the gains highest. A few decades back, the focus of maritime crime was in the South China Sea, especially up by Vietnam and Thailand. As countermeasures were taken, mostly aircraft patrols and some very vigorous law enforcement, they moved to the coast of Nigeria. Then, when thatv got too hot they moved the the Straits of Malacca and Indonesian waters. That got too hot when Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia set up a joint surveillance system and the pirates started "disappearing" on the high seas. Now its moved to Somalia. Make it too hot there and the pirates will try elsewhere.

Also, don't overestimate the effectiveness of pirates. I've said this before but even an intensive attack is unlikely to be effective against a ship. it's near-impossible to hit a merchant ship from a speedboat in rough water with an unstabilized weapon like an RPG. Armed men of the ships have a terrific advantage over the pirates simply because their shooting from a stable platform. Under these conditions a man witha pistol on a ship has a greater effective range than a man with an RPG on a speedboat. It doesn't take very much to stop these guys. The ideal countermeasure is a few good marksmen with rifles who join the ship as it enters the risk area, stays with the ship until its clear and then gets moved by helo to the next ship. After the pirates start getting shot up, they'll find another profession

[Isolder74]

So in this case an effective q-ship would be a 2 squads with a rail side maduce.

[Stuart]

If they're approaching from the stern at high speed with the ship's exhaust blowing into their faces and suffering from lots of vibration and spray in their small boats, they're probably going to mistake her from behind for a factory trawler, which has a similar superstructure and cleared deck aft when viewed from behind:

That's exactly right, its easy enough to say that a given ship is easily-identifiable when one's ashore but from a speedboat in a rough sea from an unfavorable angle in bad light conditions with spray, smoke and glare everywhere, things can get very difficult indeed. It's hard to even guess the ship's size within the right order of magnitude. Remember these guys don't have Jane's Frightening Slips to hand and they have zero specific knowledge of what the world's navies look like. Under these conditions, even if they saw the 3.9 inch gun forward, they'd probably think it was a crane or a deckhouse

[Sea Skimmer]

Simply going in and clearing out the pirates is legally dubious because technically Somalia exists in the same sense as any other country, and sending military forces onto its sovereign territory without elaborately worked out agreements is against international law and so on.

I am fairly certain that the UN already passed a resolution authorizing pursuit of pirates onto land, a while after it passed the one nullifying Somali territorial waters as a legal conservation. The US and France of course already have bombarded the shore and landed troops at various times and for various reasons in the last couple years.

[Stuart]

So in this case an effective q-ship would be a 2 squads with a rail side maduce.

Even that would be overkill. A couple of competent guys with M-14s, FALs or FPKs would do the job just as well. Say a total of six so there are three teams of two, eight hour duty shifts each. All that has to be made clear is that if the ship is attacked they will fight and they will kill as many pirates as they can. If that means a few merchant seamen killed in the crossfire, then their lives would have been properly expended.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I am fairly certain that the UN already passed a resolution authorizing pursuit of pirates onto land, a while after it passed the one nullifying Somali territorial waters as a legal conservation. The US and France of course already have bombarded the shore and landed troops at various times and for various reasons in the last couple years.

That's certainly possible; in fact I think the Somali government may have requested that this step be taken because they were themselves incapable of doing anything, though I'm not sure. But even so it just leads into the second point, which is that at this point nobody cares enough. If the pirates became enough of a risk that many shipping companies actually changed their routes to go the long way around Africa, with the attendant jump in shipping costs and thus commodities prices, then I think we'd see the pirates crushed in short order. Either the USN and Marines would stomp them, or we would give the Ethiopians (who are effectively in charge of the Horn now) incentive to do so for us.