Somali pirates vary tactics, use dhows

Somali pirates have become bolder and more inventive, staging increasing attacks despite ramped up global efforts to thwart them, according to delegates of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium.

Once limited to areas near the Somali coast, pirates also now hijack the traditional and less detectable wooden trade boats that ply Gulf waters, to use as motherships from which to launch more distant attacks with their smaller, nimbler skiffs.

"Piracy is expanding," said Nirmal Verma, Chief of Indian Naval Staff, on the sidelines of the symposium. "It's come to a point where you have non-state actors occupying strategic spaces. That never happened before."

"In 2005, piracy didn't extend miles off the Somali coast. Today, the latest attempts were about 1,000 miles away," he said.

Once sailing vessels at the mercy of ocean breezes, wooden Gulf dhows are now motorised and made large enough to carry tonnes of foodstuffs and even cars. The wooden vessels can slip past radar scans, but also withstand the rough high seas.

Dhow owners in the UAE, a major dhow hub, complained in March that their boats were increasingly targeted by pirates and some had halted trade to Somali ports as a result.

In what some delegates said were increasing attacks, Somali pirates now hold some 400 sailors hostage overall. The London-based International Maritime Bureau said attacks were at a six-year high in 2009.

"The pirates adapt new methods. Every time we suppress piracy, they change their tactics," said Ibrahim Mohamed Al Musharrakh, Commander of the UAE's Naval Forces.

French and Australian naval commanders said they were optimistic that increasing co-operation in counter-piracy efforts would improve results.

Two freighters seized

A Greek-owned freighter was seized by pirates in the Gulf of Aden, with a crew of at least 23 people on board, most of them Filipinos, the Greek coastguard said yesterday. The Liberian-flagged freighter Elena P was sailing from Ukraine to China with a cargo of iron ore. "We were informed by the Atalanta international naval force patrolling the region," she said.

In another incident, pirates hijacked a Bulgarian chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday with 15 members on board. MV Panega, was hijacked about 100 nautical miles east of Aden. The ship was on route from the Red Sea to India.