Somali Pirates operating far to the Southeast of Kenya bagged themselves a big one...
A VLCC Supertanker, fully loaded.
The American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen was shocked by the pirate attack more than 450 nautical miles out to sea...
shocked? um, guys...
*This Piracy Alert* hit International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Commercial Crime Services on the 14th. That would be 2 days before the tanker was taken. I will grant that none of the warning report cases were so far out, but it is not the most difficult of map exercises to have noted that pirate motherships would have better options of attack in that region if they had a "nest" in the waters of the Seychelles.
So being impressed with the pirates operational capabilities is entirely reasonable. Being "shocked", on the other hand, smacks of somebody not being on top of the available intelligence.
hat tip to the excellent work at Eaglespeak on analyzing the new risk zone.
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3 comments:
And it is doubtful that we have a Jefferson in office that will take care of the problem. What am I saying, this was made to order for the upcoming president elect. Actually a softball problem, especially in this day and age. Though I suppose he will probably want to negotiate with them first if anything, rather than deal with the problem head on. If so you have to wonder if congress will authorize enough money to placate them, as what happened 200 years ago.
@tom
I'd have to say I'd counsel against 15 years of paying tribute and cut straight to the reprisal raids, but then I see things a bit more simply than the World-Lawyers out there do. But after a long hard look at UNCLOS articles 100~105 and various other parts of the body of law out there, and since the Somali TFG gave the ok to any international force to come in to territorial waters for action against the pirates...
...it sure looks like the only thing keeping various national navies from taking action is their own lawyer's advice.
@All
Here are the two most recent stories out of the Times (UK) on this:
INS Tabar sinks a pirate mothership in the Gulf of Aden.
The ransom demand for the Sirius Star VLCC is in play.
{sarc}
My special thanks to al-Jazeera TV for interviewing the pirate(s) and promulgating the ransom demand openly.
{/sarc}
**sheesh**
Follow-up
It is a little behind the curve on this, as concerns of Straits of Malacca piracy have been renewed (over about the last 2 months) but *here* is a pretty straightforward piece of open analysis on why things might get worse for piracy in SE Asia.
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