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Blackwater: 13 firms want pirate protection

The contractor Blackwater Worldwide is in talks with 13 shipping companies interested in hiring the firm’s ship to escort their cargo vessels through the pirate-plagued waters off the Horn of Africa, the company’s president said.

Blackwater CEO Erik Prince said the world’s shipping firms are eager for as much protection as possible for their vessels, partly because the U.S. and international warships in the Gulf of Aden haven’t done enough to stop or dissuade piracy.

“Clearly they’re not patrolling everywhere because there are attacks occurring on a regular basis,” Prince said. “We’d be focusing on the customers who hired us.”

Blackwater’s main tool is its 183-foot ship, the McArthur, a retired oceanographic survey vessel that has been refitted to carry two OH-6 Little Bird helicopters, three rigid-hull inflatable boats and 35 “security professionals,” as Prince called them. The McArthur, its aircraft and its boats will run a maritime version of Blackwater’s personal security detail, Prince said, escorting client vessels just as their ground operatives protect clients in road convoys.

It takes about 24 hours for a ship to move through the dangerous waters, Prince said. The McArthur could meet a ship near the southern mouth of the Red Sea — the Bab al-Mandeb, or “gate of tears,” — sail around the Horn of Africa and rendezvous with a northbound vessel and make the reverse trip.

According to a report in the shipping industry newspaper Lloyd’s List, French warships began Oct. 6 accompanying merchant vessels in similar missions through the area.

Prince appeared Sunday on “This Week in Defense News,” a television show hosted by Navy Times’ sister publication, Defense News. He said the 20,000 ships that travel past the Horn of Africa each year could provide a steady market for protection services.

The U.S. and international navies that patrol the Gulf of Aden have been stymied by a thicket of legal confusion about what capabilities they have to fight pirates on the high seas and in Somali waters. Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, commander of Naval Forces Europe, told reporters Oct. 21 that NATO is debating rules of engagement for dealing with pirates.

Fitzgerald said a major problem is that until they attack, it’s seldom clear which mariners are pirates.

Prince said the McArthur’s crew will have clear policies on the use of force. The contractors will initially use a laser dazzler or a Long Range Acoustic Device to warn away suspected pirates, then warning shots, before firing on attackers. But he said he wasn’t worried that his operatives would have trouble identifying which ships to worry about.

“If guys are in a 20-foot fishing boat in the middle of the Gulf of Aden holding [rocket-propelled grenades], they’re not out there fishing,” Prince said. “You know what their intent is.”