From Maritime Reporter & Engineering News, October 2011
David Rider
As the NATO and EU
NAVFOR operations Ocean Shield and Atalanta continue their work in the
Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and Red Sea areas, one could easily be
forgiven for thinking, well, that’s that. Tough luck, pirates, the world
is on to you. Sadly, as anyone involved in international shipping
knows, that is very far from the truth.
The fact is that the areas patrolled by the world’s navies are vast and
the chance of early interdiction of a pirate skiff or mothership by a
naval vessel is small. In the risk versus reward world of the pirate,
it’s a virtual no-brainer.
Given that around seven percent1 of the world’s oil supplies and an
estimated 22,000 vessels transit the Gulf of Aden (GoA) annually, it
would be reasonable to expect that same transit route to be safe and
free of incident, but the reality is far from it.
In early August 2011, the International Chamber of Commerce’s Commercial
Crime Service reported that there had already been 22 successful
hijackings by Somali pirates, while countless others have been
approached, attacked and pursued by pirates in high speed skiffs,
launched from nearby motherships.
As the methods employed by the world’s navies to combat them have become
more sophisticated and organized, so the pirates have changed their
tactics to suit, with the first six months of 2011 showing a dramatic
rise in attacks over the same period for 2010; some 266 attacks on
vessels in the period, compared with 196 for last year2.
This year’s monsoon season has been a stark reminder that pirates are
highly motivated to capture their quarry. While normally shipping could
breath a sigh of relief at the arrival of the summer monsoon, this year
the IMB issued a statement warning seafarers of the continuing danger of
pirate attack. The organization said that the movement of pirates to
the GoA and Southern Red Sea (SRS) areas, due to monsoon conditions in
the Indian Ocean were a, “cause for concern.” IMB Director, Captain
Pottengal Mukundan, said: “It may be that these recent Indian Ocean
incidents are a sign of desperation by pirates, or that there are many
more pirate groups operating now than there were in 2010, particularly
outside the Gulf of Aden.”
As a leading supplier of armed security personnel to the maritime
community, Neptune Maritime Security continually has Vessel Protection
Teams (VPTs) transiting both the IRTC and High Risk Area, and identified
a potential trend in pirate tactics during the monsoons.
While July was a quiet month in the SRS region, with only a handful of
minor reports, a string of what can only be termed ‘swarm’ attacks took
place in August off the coast of Eritrea, possibly due to pirates moving
up through Bab el-Mandeb, the ‘Gate of Tears,’ the strait that connects
the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. When the monsoons
bring dangerous conditions to the open sea, pirates will retreat here to
calmer waters.
It was here that large numbers of pirates were reported to be operating
in ‘packs’ and attempting to swarm vessels in large numbers.
The first incident, on August 7, according to the report filed with the
IMB’s Live Piracy Reporting Center3, saw 12 skiffs containing between
five to eight pirates per skiff pursue and attack a bulk carrier
approximately 20nm off the coast of Eritrea. As the skiffs approached to
within 300m of the carrier, the Master ordered the armed security
guards onboard to fire warning shots at the pirates’ skiffs. While this
show of force saw the majority of pirate vessels break off their attack,
two skiffs continued in their pursuit for some 30 minutes, returning
fire at the armed guards until they, too, aborted their attack. If one
believes the report – and there is no reason to doubt the legitimacy of
reports filed with the IMB – then even underestimating the number of
pirates to just 60 still leaves us with evidence of a worrying trend in
pirate tactics.
Following an advisory notice issued by Neptune Maritime Security to both
the media and other companies in the industry, we received news of a
second ‘swarm’ attack4 on August 10. On this occasion, a Panama-flagged
tanker, Golden Topstar, was pursued while underway at 13:08N-043:07E by
pirates in 12 skiffs. The vessel evaded the attack by employing evasive
maneuvers and firing flares. The site of the incident is just 6.5nm away
from the attempted attack three days previously.
A third ‘swarm’ attack occurred5 on August 17. A bulk carrier underway,
approximately 22nm off Assab, Eritrea, at 13:16N-043:01E, was approached
by seven high speed boats, each containing three to five men, armed
with automatic weapons. Again, the attack was repelled thanks to the
employment of evasive maneuvers and an increase in speed by the vessel.
This attempt occurred just 10.2nm away from the incident on August 10th.
Reports then emerged from the Iranian Navy, concerning a wave of
attempted attacks on the bulk carrier ‘SAEI’ at the mouth of the SRS at
Bab-el-Mandeb, although exact location information was not provided.
According to the Iranian Navy report, the first attack saw four skiffs
containing 20 pirates engage the vessel, the second wave featured eight
skiffs with a force of 40 pirates and a third and final attempt was said
to feature just two skiffs with just 12 pirates on board.
While some sources have questioned the credibility of these reports, the
bulk of available data should at least raise concerns in the industry
as to the changing and malleable nature of the tactics employed by
pirates in the area. The IMB reports6 that (at the time of writing),
since May 20, 14 vessels have been attacked in the Southern Red Sea.
Further east, pirates were also changing their MO, choosing to avoid the
rough Arabian Seas in favour of daring raids near major shipping hubs.
The successful hijacking of the chemical tanker, Fairchem Bogey7, on
August 20, illustrates how pirates have altered tactics in response to
pressure from EU NAVFOR, the monsoon and better practice by vessels
transiting the HRA. According to reports, the Fairchem Bogey, carrying a
cargo of methanol, anchored 4-5 miles off the Omani port of Salalah.
Ironically, the armed guards employed by the shipping company to watch
over the vessel in transit had disembarked once the ship reached what
was thought to be safe anchorage. Then, at approximately 0630 UTC, a
group of pirates stealthily boarded the vessel and took its crew of 21
hostage. Did the pirates have someone on shore, advising them of the
protection team’s departure, or was this just dumb luck? We may never
know.
The attack caused concern not only due to its brazen nature, but also
because Oman has a well resourced Coast Guard, who were on the scene
within an hour. Unfortunately, by then it was too late, and they were
warned off by the hijackers, who later sailed the vessel to Garacad and
demanded a $10m dollar ransom for its release8.
The attack shows parallels to the hijacking of the cargo ship, Leopard,
which was boarded off the Omani coast on January 12. The freighter had
discharged its armed guards and was boarded shortly afterwards. Six crew
members are still being held hostage by the pirates involved9. Since
the hijacking of the Fairchem Bogey, there have been several other
attempts made to attack vessels, which the Omani Coast Guard have
rebuffed.
While attacks on vessels off Oman are hardly news, recent weeks have
seen an increase in attempted hijackings in the region, which perhaps
illustrates the increasing pressure pirate gangs have felt due to local
weather conditions, the presence of naval vessels and more recently, the
presence of armed security guards onboard vessels. According to EU
NAVFOR, 90% of ships surviving a pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden this
year have credited a security team for aiding their escape10.
As we reach the end of the monsoon season, international shipping can
once again expect Somali pirates to strike out further into the Arabian
Sea and Indian Ocean in an attempt to make up for time lost due to the
monsoon, utilising hijacked fishing boats and merchant vessels as mother
ships. As Captain Keith Blount, Chief of Staff with EU NAVFOR told
Reuters: “I think we are going to see a surge in piracy because we
always have done at this time when the southwest monsoon abates and the
seas become flatter.”
“Typically the pirates have a really good go in the autumn and winter,” he said on the sidelines of a shipping conference11.
The international battle against piracy continues its cat and mouse
game, with no immediate end in sight for either the beleaguered shipping
companies who have paid an estimated $95 million in ransoms this year
alone, or the estimated 343 seafarers still being held hostage in
Somalia12.
Neptune Maritime Security
www.neptunemaritimesecurity.com
Email: info@neptune-ms.com
(As published in the October 2011 edition of Maritime Reporter & Engineering News - www.marinelink.com)
