Navy: Shipping companies must tackle piracy - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Navy: Shipping companies must tackle piracy

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The international shipping industry must take on more responsibility to protect vessels against pirate attacks and kidnappings in the dangerous Gulf waters rather than rely on the Navy, the commander of 5th Fleet warned Monday.

Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said the U.S.-led coalition patrolling the Gulf of Aden simply doesn’t “have the resources to provide 24-hour protection” for hundreds of commercial vessels passing through daily.

Gortney’s comments come as heavily armed pirates increasingly stalk the seas off the coast of Somalia. Drug smuggling and kidnappings for ransom have increased despite heavy presence of U.S. warships and patrol boats in the area.

A statement Monday from the 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain quotes Gortney as saying that shipping companies “must take measures to defend their vessels and crews.” Gortney also suggested they consider hiring security teams for ships.

So far this year, 57 ships have been attacked in the area, mostly in the Gulf of Aden. The surge prompted the Navy last month to establish a security corridor patrolled by an international coalition of warships.

Their presence has helped deter more than a dozen attacks in four weeks, the Navy said, but “criminals still successfully targeted several vessels in the region.”

The Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, is one of the world’s busiest waterways with some 20,000 ships passing through it each year. Its waters, off the eastern coast of Somalia, are also a route for drug smuggling, human trafficking and kidnapping for ransom.

Thirteen ships with more than 300 crew members remain in pirates’ hands, according to the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.

British navy’s commander in the Middle East, Commodore Keith Winstanley, acknowledged in a telephone interview with The Associated Press a “considerable spike in destabilizing activity,” with smuggling, trafficking, hijacking and crew kidnappings becoming “an extremely lucrative business.”

Wistanley warned that the presence of coalition destroyers, frigates and an aircraft carrier alone won’t stop the piracy.

“We do what we can, but the solution to this problem is clearly not at sea, but ashore in Somalia.” He did not elaborate.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991. The country’s eastern coast is difficult to patrol, and pirates there are often trained fighters typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenades.