US leads UN push to hunt, punish Somali pirates

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By JOHN HEILPRIN and ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writers John Heilprin And Robert Burns, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 18 mins ago



UNITED NATIONS – The United States sought international authorization Wednesday to hunt Somali pirates on land with the cooperation of Somalia's weak U.N.-backed government in one of the Bush administration's last major foreign policy initiatives.

The U.S. circulated a draft United Nations Security Council resolution proposing that all nations and regional groups cooperating with Somalia's government in the fight against piracy and armed robbery "may take all necessary measures ashore in Somalia," including its airspace.

If the U.S. military gets involved, it would mark a dramatic turnabout from the U.S. experience in Somalia in 1992-1993 that culminated in a deadly military clash in Mogadishu followed by a humiliating withdrawal of American forces.

Piracy off Somalia has intensified in recent months, with more attacks against a wider range of targets. There was an unsuccessful assault on a cruise ship in the Gulf of Aden, which links the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. In September, pirates seized a Ukrainian freighter loaded with 33 battle tanks and on Nov. 15 they seized a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million worth of crude.

The U.S. resolution is to be presented at a session on Somalia Tuesday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

It proposes that for a year, nations "may take all necessary measures ashore in Somalia, including in its airspace, to interdict those who are using Somali territory to plan, facilitate or undertake acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea and to otherwise prevent those activities."

The draft also says Somalia's government — whose president wrote the U.N. twice this month already seeking help — suffers from a "lack of capacity, domestic legislation, and clarity about how to dispose of pirates after their capture."

Earlier this month, the Security Council extended authorization for another year for countries to enter Somalia's territorial waters, with advance notice, and to use "all necessary means" to stop acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea.

Nations entering Somali waters to fight piracy and armed robbery along the country's 1,880-mile coastline, the continent's longest, must first obtain approval from the Somali government and give advance notice to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

But now the U.S. believes the fight must go ashore.

Other international forces, however, have fared poorly in the past trying to help Somalia, whose latest government was formed in 2004, with the help of the U.N., and is backed by Ethiopia.

Somalia has been without an effective government for nearly 20 years. The United States sent troops in 1993 to back a massive U.N. relief operation for thousands of civilians left starving by fighting.

But the U.S. attacked the home of a warlord, killing scores of civilians including women and children. Somali militiamen retaliated, bringing down two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and killing 18 American servicemen whose bodies were dragged through the streets. That experience precipitating the U.S. withdrawal was portrayed in the 2001 movie "Black Hawk Down."

Ethiopian troops, the region's strongest force, have been regularly attacked since arriving two years ago. They largely have been confined to urban bases, as have the 2,600 African Union peacekeepers sent as part of an approved 8,000-member AU mission.

The push for a broader international accord on how to suppress piracy in waters off Somalia's lawless coast is one of President George W. Bush's final foreign policy initiatives, officials say.

Without committing more U.S. Navy ships, the administration wants to tap into what officials see as a growing enthusiasm in Europe and elsewhere for more effective coordinated action against the Somali pirates. Administration officials view the current effort as lacking coherence, as pirates score more and bigger shipping prizes.

Spearheading the administration's case, Rice intends to make a pitch at the U.N.'s anti-piracy meeting in New York on Tuesday with her counterparts from a number of nations with a stake in solving the problem.

"I expect in the coming weeks we will work within the U.N. to give the international system better policy tools to more effectively address the problem and its root causes," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

That includes pressing for an international peacekeeping force in Somalia to replace the Ethiopian-led force that is to depart soon, he said. The pirates are Somalis based in camps near coastal port villages. The U.S. says they have links to an Islamic extremist group that has taken control of much of the country.

About 100 attacks on ships have been reported off the Somali coast this year. Forty vessels have been hijacked, with 14 still remaining in the hands of pirates along with more than 250 crew members, according to maritime officials.

Pirates have attacked 32 vessels and hijacked 12 since NATO sent four ships to the region Oct. 24 to escort cargo ships and conduct anti-piracy patrols. Ships still being held for huge ransoms include the Saudi oil tanker and the Ukrainian ship.

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Associated Press Writer Robert Burns reported from Washington.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081211/.../un_un_somalia

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Anti-piracy force thwarts attack on Chinese ship
By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press Writer Ahmed Al-haj, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 17 mins ago




SAN'A, Yemen – An international anti-piracy force thwarted the attempted takeover of a Chinese cargo ship off the Somali coast on Wednesday, sending in attack helicopters that fired on the bandits and forced them to abandon the ship they had boarded.

In another blow to the region's thriving piracy trade, the Indian navy handed over 23 pirates it caught at sea to authorities in Yemen.

In Wednesday's assault, nine pirates armed with guns overtook the Chinese ship with speedboats and boarded the vessel, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

He said the 30-member crew sent a distress message to the bureau as it saw the pirates approaching, then barricaded themselves inside their living quarters. Choong said the bureau quickly alerted the international naval force, which dispatched two helicopters and a warship.

"Two helicopters arrived at the scene first and helped deter the hijacking. They fired at the pirates, forcing them to flee the ship," he said. There were no injuries during the five-hour ordeal.

"The Chinese ship is very fortunate to have escaped. This is a rare case where pirates have successfully boarded the ship but failed to hijack it," he added.

Somali pirates, spurred by widespread poverty in their homeland, have hijacked more than 40 vessels off their country's coastline this year. Many of the seizures have taken place in the Gulf of Aden, which lies between Somalia and Yemen and is one of the world's busiest waterways. Many of the vessels are taken to pirate-controlled regions in Somalia, where they are held for ransom.

China's official Xinhua News Agency identified the boat involved in the latest attempt as the Zhenhua 4 and said it belonged to China Communications Construction Co. and was registered in the Caribbean island of St. Vincent.

It was the latest in a series of attacks by Somali pirates on Chinese vessels. On Tuesday, said it was considering sending warships to the area to help battle piracy.

The announcement came during a unanimous U.N. Security Council vote to authorize nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases on the coast of Somalia.

"The area is just too wide to patrol. Hopefully with the U.N. resolution, there will be more firm action to stop this menace," Choong said.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told the council that China was considering sending warships to the Gulf of Aden to join ships from the U.S., Russia, Denmark, Italy and other countries.

In Yemen, meanwhile, the Indian navy handed over 23 pirates arrested in the Gulf of Aden last Saturday after they threatened a merchant vessel in the lawless waters off the Yemeni coast, a Yemeni security official said.

The Indian sailors boarded two pirate boats and seized what was described as a substantial arms cache and equipment at the time. The security official said the pirates included 12 Somalis and 11 Yemenis.

The handover took place in the southern port of Aden, and the pirates were to be interrogated and charged in court. He stressed that Yemen has the right to try Somali pirates because their arrest took place inside Yemeni waters.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media pending a government statement. He spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from Aden.

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Associated Press writers Henry Sanderson in Beijing, and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to the report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081217/ap_on_re_af/piracy