Pirates are getting more complex; it’s time to stop them

After maintaining a relatively low profile since the end of the monsoon season two months ago, Somali pirates literally shot their way back into the headlines with a brazen daylight attack on a crude oil tanker that was their longest range strike ever.

This followed on the heels of the attempt by another group of pirates to hijack a commercial passenger airline flight last week as well as troubling indications that the various pirate gangs are begin to act with greater cohesion.

All these developments possibly presage an escalation of the threat off the Horn of Africa.

Last Monday attacked the MV BW Lion, a Hong Kong-flagged 160,000-tonne, 330-metre-long tanker, with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

By increasing speed and taking evasive manoeuvers as well as judiciously using water hoses over the course of the two hours he was under assailed by the marauders, the ship’s master managed to evade the assailants without casualty or serious damage to his vessel.

Nonetheless, the assault is significant because the target’s position 400 nautical miles northeast of the Seychelles, well over 1,000 nautical miles east of Mogadishu.

The attack on the BW Lion comes just three weeks after the October 19 seizure of the Chinese bulk carrier De Xin Hai and its twenty-five crew members at point some 350 nautical miles northeast of the Seychelles and 700 nautical miles east of the Somali coast.

The embarrassment of the hijacking and ongoing captivity of the coal ship no doubt played a role in the request made this week by senior officials the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) that China share in the chairmanship of the monthly strategy meetings currently rotated between the commanders of the European Union and United States-led anti-piracy task forces in the region.

They have mastered the seamanship necessary to operate in the oceans.

As a result of the recent long-range incidents, the EU Naval Force Maritime Security Centre issued an alert this week advising merchant vessels not having to call at ports in Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania to keep as far from the East African coast as possible.

It is unfortunate that the international community did not likewise use the lull to develop effective long-term solutions whose costs can be contained within acceptable limits.

Pham is Senior Fellow and Director of the Africa Project at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York City.