Somali Pirates: Hijacking and "Thwarting"

From the Tribune of India: India, China warships thwart pirate attack off Aden coast

The Indian Navy and China’s People’s Liberation Army (Navy) jointly

OS-35

saved a bulk carrier named OS-35 which came under attack by pirates. The 178-metre ship was attacked by pirates on Saturday night in the Arabian Sea. The INS Mumbai provided air cover to the distressed merchant vessel, while the PLA Navy ship Yulin sent in a team of 18 to sanitise the merchant ship.

Previous reports were that OS-35 had been hijacked see Reuters: Somali Pirates "Suspected" in Bulker Hijack

Somali pirates are suspected of hijacking a bulk carrier ship, the head of

INS Mumbai

a maritime security company said on Saturday, in the latest in a string of attacks after years of calm.

A security source working at the Puntland Marine Police Force said the vessel was Tuvalu-flagged and is known as OS35.

Info on OS-35 here

PLAN frigate of type involved

Copyrighted photo of OS-35 by Julian De Lucas from Vesselfinder.com.

Well, yeah - "China’s New Islands Are Clearly Military, U.S. Pacific Chief Says "

Kevin Baron of DefenseOne reports "China’s New Islands Are Clearly Military, U.S. Pacific Chief Says" :

“I believe those facilities are clearly military in nature,” Harris said at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual gathering in Colorado of dozens of top U.S. national security leaders, convened by the Aspen Institute.

In his notably undiplomatic remarks, Harris called on China to show meaningful diplomacy to resolve the territorial disputes. But the four-star admiral also appeared resigned to seeing further construction and eventual deployment of military aircraft and ships.

Fiery Cross Reef sits smack in the middle of South China Sea sea lanes

“They are building ports that are deep enough to host warships and they’re building a 10,000-foot runway at Fiery Cross Reef,” Harris said, referring to one of China’s construction activities in the Spratly Islands that Japan has protested. “A 10,000-foot runaway is large enough to take a B-52, almost large enough for the Space Shuttle, and 3,000 feet longer than you need to take off a 747. So, there’s no small airplane that requires a runway of that length. They’re building rebutted aircraft hangers at some of the facilities there that are clearly designed, in my view, to host tactical fighter aircraft.”

Development on Fiery Cross Reef

I think the Admiral probably said "revetted" and not "rebutted" but that's a minor note. The major note is that -

The top U.S. military officer in the Pacific sternly warned China on Friday to immediately cease its “aggressive coercive island building” in the South China Sea, which he argued was intended clearly for China’s military use as forward operating bases in combat against their regional neighbors.

UPDATE: These maps from an older post might be helpful in visualizing sea lanes a/k/a sea lines of commerce:

Somali Pirates: Rise and Fall of the Piracy Tide

Thanks to our friends at the IMB's Live Piracy Map, we have a chance to review the rise and fall of the Somali piracy tide.

What follows is a little over 7 year look at the impact of the pirates in the offshore Somalia region and in the Indian Ocean area writ large:

It took some time for the response to catch up with the threat to the sea lanes - for navies to deploy, to create a structure, to organize convoys, plan and carry out interdiction and for the use of armed guards on merchant ships to take effect.

A rather dramatic effect.

Will it last?

Let's hope.

For those of you needing a primer or refresher on sea lanes or sea lines of communications, you might go here or here or here from whence the following graphics on sea highways came:

Blue arrows point to major choke points

One day's ship traffic as seen from space

An overlay I created of pirate attacks on traveled sea lanes in Feb 2011

Somali Pirates: Warning of a logical extension into new hunting grounds

A suggestion of a potential area of expansion for the pirates of Somalia, should they decide to venture further into the open ocean using their "mother ships" is found at "Piracy: Cape to Arabian Gulf and Malacca Shipping Lanes Are Latest Targets", which builds off an early February 2012 hijacking:

Red arrow points to referenced 8 Feb attack

NATO has issued an alert saying that a merchant vessel was attacked yesterday (8 February 2012) and is suspected to have been hijacked. At 14h38 UTC the vessel was in position 13 32 N 058 36 E.

***

The hijacking comes on the same day that a maritime security company whose services include the provision of armed guards on ships warns of “a critical shift in pirate focus.”

GoAGT (Gulf of Aden Group Transits) said on Thursday that over the past week it has received first-hand information from sources indicating that several Pirate Action Groups (PAGs) have begun to focus operations in a new regional area. These sightings suggest that pirates are targeting the Cape to Arabian Gulf shipping lane.

“There is a potential for PAGs to move east and endanger shipping along the Cape to Malacca route,” added GoAGT. “Shipping along these routes are vulnerable as many vessels are not hardened against piracy, and do not carry armed guards. This is due to these routes being outside of the traditional High Risk Area (HRA).”

"Mothership" dhow?

GoAGT says the activity east of the Seychelles is “likely motivated by the search for unprepared shipping. The operational range for PAGs has greatly increased due to the use of mothership vessels, which allow for extended operations at sea. It is also possible that PAGs can extend operations south of the Maldives.” “On 6 February,” says GoAGT, “a merchant vessel was approached by two skiffs in the central Indian Ocean Region at position 05°03'N 066°07'E. On 8 February, a second merchant vessel was attacked at position 04°18'S 059°59'E by a skiff with five pirates on board (POB). The distance between these attacks suggests that several PAGs are now operating in this area. “With the extensive concentration of anti-piracy measures in the Northern Indian Ocean, it is increasingly likely PAGs will attempt to target new areas to take advantage of unprotected shipping lanes,” warns GoAGT.

***

Nato said piracy activities have been recently reported in the Indian Ocean in vicinity of the Seychelles Islands and warned that approaches occurred on 28 January north of the Seychelles Islands in position 0455N 05814E and on 6 February east of the Seychelles Islands in the position of 0503S 06607E. “Masters are advised to proceed through these areas with extreme caution, and be advised that the PAG (Pirate Attack Group) responsible for the recent approaches (NSC4) in the Indian Ocean is still believe to be in the area.”

Okay, GoAGT might be attempting to drum up a little business, but its point is well made. Somali pirates have shifted their attacks to areas in which coverage by naval forces has been weak or non-existent and to locales where the perceived need for shipboard armed security teams has also been low. It is logical that the pirates might shift to a sea lane which, as yet, has not been bothered by pirate attacks.

What virginal sea lanes that are within the potential reach of the Somali pirates are in danger?

 What follows is a mashup chart I created by combining a chart from a study of "The complex network of global cargo ship movements" by Pablo Kaluza, et al. with a recent IMB Live Piracy Map showing attacks to 4 March 2012 in the Indian Ocean area:

EagleSpeak Mashup Map: The more yellow the line, the more heavily traveled the sea lane 

If it looks a little fuzzy, It's because of the overlay of the maps to allow me to make my point - there a number of heavily traveled sea lanes radiating (roughly) from South Africa to India, to the Strait of Malacca and to other points in eastern Indian Ocean. Given enough of a mothership, these areas are potentially vulnerable to pirate attacks, though, to date, none has occurred along them.

Here's another liberty I have taken from the Kaluza, et al piece, in which the green oval I have added highlights the area of concern:

Having a hypotheses of a potential area of attack - and one that covers a vast area of ocean at that- what is a viable way of providing some protection for these as yet "un-pirated" sea lanes?

One thought is to use modern airships as counter-pirate tools, as set out in an earlier pos,  Fighting Pirates with Airships, an idea apparently being examined by the Royal Navy. Another possibility is to keep the Somali pirates out of these sea lanes by a vigorous containment policy, though ultimately there has to be a "risk/reward" look at the potential which ways the costs of prevention of hijackings against the cost of paying ransoms.

Sea Lines of Communication or Sea Lanes

Back in the beginning days of this blog, I had a couple of posts about "sea lanes" and their importance. For example, from 2005, there was a post cleverly titled "Sea Lanes". I wrote then:

I keep posting about sea lanes. What are these things? Sea lanes are trade routes - almost like highways in the sea, where due to geography, ocean going vessels follow certain paths to avoid islands, shallows and other impediments to their travel. They are also generally the most efficient routes to get from Point A to Point B - as close to straight line travel as a ship can accomplish given the number of obstacles in its path.

Since then, there have been hundreds of posts here in which I refer to either "sea lanes" or "sea lines of communication" (see, e.g. Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs)). There can be a difference between the two terms, since SLOC can have a military meaning that I have generally ignored here.

However, what is important to know about sea lanes or SLOCs is that they exist and that they are a major reason that nations interested in international commerce have navies - to keep the sea lanes open. In discussing maritime security, keeping sea lanes open is a major topic.

We hear a lot about how many things travel by sea. From crude oil to grain to large screen TVs to cars and much more, cheaper shipping has allowed the entire world to benefit from global product distribution (see here and here). Where do these products travel? Sea lanes. An excellent example of these sea lanes is shown on this Naval War College slide (which I have borrowed without shame):

There it is, a picture of world commerce. Those are not war ships wending their way across oceans, those are merchant ships moving the goods that make the world go. You might note that there are places where the traffic converges to pass through narrow areas. These are referred to as "chokepoints", "Chokepoints are narrow channels along widely used global sea routes . . ."

Large ships sail on rigid schedules, carrying parts from Japan to the U.S. or to Europe in such a reliable manner that warehouse costs are reduced by planning for "just in time" deliveries of products.

So, when there is a disruption in the smooth flow of goods, say from the recent earthquake in Japan, there are ripple effects that impact more than the Japanese part manufacturers.

A similar effect is caused by things that interfere with sea lanes. These might be something like a catastrophe that strikes a chokepoint like a closure of the Suez Canal.

Taking the map above, I added some blue arrows to point at a few chokepoints, like the Suez Canal, Strait of Malacca, Strait of Hormuz, Strait of Bab el-Mandab, Strait of Gibraltar, and the general area of straits leading from the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico (see below).

Want to look at Caribbean chokepoints? I added some destroyer images to make the point - most of the oil imported into the U.S. by ship has to pass through these straits. In turn, these straits need to be protected if our economy is to work.

Finally, let me again refer to an older post about the Somali pirates and how cleverly they've been in moving out into the major sea lanes of the Indian Ocean area as they ply their trade. See Where the Somali Pirates Operate and Why where I put up this consolidated image of the Indian Ocean sea lanes and pirates strikes:

While there seem to be logistical limits on the Somali pirates as to the number of captive ships and hostages they can host at any given time and this limits their impact on the sea lane flow of commerce, they are certainly well-versed in the exploitation of the known sea lanes. Even this relatively minor bump in the flow of traffic, though, has been enough to get 20 or more naval vessels from many different countries out into the Indian Ocean attempting to thwart interference by the pirates of these vital sea lanes.

The greater lesson of the Somali pirates is how relatively easy it may be to cause trouble on sea lanes or at chokepoints and why it is vital to have in place assets to counter any such attempted trouble making.

We have now reviewed sea lanes, sea lines of communication and choke points and their importance to the global flow of commerce on the highway of the sea.

I suppose we also have covered why we, a nation dependent on maritime commerce, have a Navy and a Coast Guard out there keeping the sea lanes open. As noted here:

70% of the world is water, 80% of the world lives on or near the coastline and 90% of our commerce sails across it. Any disruption in that chain caused by instability has a direct impact on American quality of life.