US unmanned 'drone' leads to arrest of nine Somali pirates

by Andrew Njuguna, News.yahoo.com/Sail-World on 16 Feb 2009 A safe Gulf of Aden for the passage of both yachts and ships may be coming closer.

A drone or unmanned aerial vehicle from the US Air Force has led to the arrest of nine Somali pirates in the 'pirate zone' waters of the Somalia.

Now that Britain and the USA have come to an agreement with Kenya that Kenya will accept and try those accused of piracy, more will surely follow.

It has taken many months of international discussion, conferences and UN Resolutions, to reach a formula which may work. On Thursday, pictures taken by the drones, some of which also are equipped with night vision, helped apprehend nine pirates after a night flight relayed pictures of a skiff with a ladder onboard. A skiff had fired a rocket- propelled grenade at a merchant vessel in the area earlier.

The American warship dispatched helicopters to provide surveillance and air cover, and it deployed a boat with a search and seizure team.

Automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades were found and the nine men onboard were detained, although they had thrown the ladder into the sea. Still, the pictures of the ladder taken by the drone can be used as evidence, as the coalition steps up efforts to pursue the pirates through the courts as well as the waves.

Pirate mother ships often are used to tow smaller skiffs out to sea and resupply them.

Previous anti-piracy efforts have been hindered by confusion over which country has the jurisdiction to prosecute suspected pirates, but the United States and Britain both signed an agreement with Kenya to try suspects in that country, which borders Somalia.

'We have a unique capability in which we have an (unmanned air vehicle) that helps us detect the pirates and makes it hard for them to hide,' USS Mahan Capt. Stephen Murphy said, pointing to the images the drone relayed to the bridge of the destroyer.

'The UAV ... can stay airborne all day and cover thousands of miles (kilometers) of the ocean and be able to spot pirates,' he told the Associated Press reporter during a five-day visit to the ship last week.

Somali pirates have been preying on passing shipping for years, but September's capture of a Ukrainian ship loaded with arms helped focus international attention on the problem. The arms ship was released earlier this month and docked in a Kenyan port on Thursday.

Pirates attacked more than 100 ships last year with a success rate of nearly 50 percent.

The number of attacks has remained steady following an influx of warships into the Gulf of Aden late last year, but their success rate has fallen to below 30 percent.

There also has been a recent spate of unseasonably bad weather.

But analysts say the problem will not be solved until a stable government is established in war-ravaged Somalia. The country has not had one since 1991, and the multimillion dollar ransoms are a strong lure in a country where nearly half the population is dependent on aid.