News

06-04-2010

Start of hijacking season

AP - NORTHWOOD HEADQUARTERS (England) - THE British commander heading the European Union's naval task force is squaring up to a new wave of increasingly young Somali pirates, as the hijacking season returns.

Rear Admiral Peter Hudson is trying to combat the gangs whose high seas piracy threatens both international trade and the survival of millions in their homeland who depend on food aid.

The monsoon is over and the pirates are back. Prowling the Indian Ocean and the strategically vital Gulf of Aden shipping route, they racked up nine hijackings and 17 unsuccessful attacks in March.

At the tight-security Northwood Headquarters complex, razor-wired off from the leafy suburbs of northwest of London, Rear Admiral Hudson and his 120-strong team drawn from 16 countries are trying to stay ahead of the game.

'We need to be adaptive, agile and try and be a bit more proactive than perhaps we were 12 months ago,' he tells AFP in his spartan bunker office, which boasts an EU flag and maps of the seas pinned to the walls.' 'They are fearless individuals. They are still prepared to take this risk and increasingly they are young chaps - early twenties, late teens, occasionally as young as 14 or 15.' 'We must use our aircraft intelligently, position our ships where we can see it is likely that pirates operate and try and foreclose the pirates' ability to get round our tactics - and they're pretty adaptive characters themselves.'

Recent moves include the pirates swarming in clusters and the EU naval force trying to catch them before they reach the high seas.