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Pirates hunted down

On Oct 21, 2013, the HMAS "Melbourne" has scuttled two pirate boats and captured nine suspected Somali pirates. A Seahawk helicopter traced the skiffs and guided the warship to them, 500 nautical miles from the Somali coast. Armed navy personnel boarded and searched the skiffs, arresting nine men and later destroying the skiffs and their equipment. The task force hunted down the suspected pirates after they allegedly attacked and exchanged gunfire with the "Island Splendor" on Oct 18. They were believed to have attacked a Spanish fishing vessel three days later. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary "Fort Victoria" co-ordinated the attack, with support ships including South Korean destroyer ROKS "Wang Geon", European Union flagship HNLMS "Johan de Witt" and a Seychelles-based maritime patrol aircraft from Luxembourg. Report with photos: http://combinedmaritimeforces.com/2013/10/18/ctf-151-apprehends-somali-pirates-and-destroys-their-skiffs/#more-3464

Somalia piracy is back - Island Splendor came under attack 230nm off the Somali coast

UK firm Dryad Maritime Intelligence has warned that the attack of two vessels in the space of four days indicates that maritime piracy has returned to East African waters. Last Friday, Oct. 18, 296,919dwt Hong Kong-flagged crude carrier MV Island Splendor came under attack 230nm off the Somali coast, when pirates in two skiffs opened fire on onboard private maritime security personnel. According to Dryad, the attack, which represented the first on a large merchant vessel since April, was followed by a second, 270 nautical miles further East, four days later. Dryad has since concluded that the two attacks were undertaken by the same pirate gang or “Pirate Action Group” (PAG). “Despite the pressure applied by coalition forces and the assessed depletion of pirate resources, there was a likelihood that we would see a break out of a PAG into the sea lanes and that the hijack and ransom of a single large merchant vessel would be all it would take to feed the infrastructure of the Somali pirate criminal enterprise,” said Ian Millen, intelligence director at Dryad. “Following Monday’s report, it would appear that the attack on two vessels in the space of four days confirms that the Somali pirate business model is not yet broken.” Millen indicated that numerous reports of pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden during the Southwest Monsoon were “not considered these to be pirate related”.