January 08, 2009
US Navy Establishes Anti-Piracy Task Force
The purpose of the separate task for is to allow coalition partners and other nations to join this specific anti-piracy mission. Recently both Russia and China sent deep water ships to patrol the Gulf of Aden. How anyone is going to "bring the pirates to justice" is another question, considering Somalia does not have a functional government.
CNN: The U.S. Navy has started a force to battle pirates attacking ships in and near the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's coast, the U.S. Fifth Fleet said Thursday. The unit -- called Combined Task Force 151 -- is a spinoff of an existing force in the region that addressed a range of security issues, such as drug smuggling and weapons trafficking, as well as piracy...The task forces are part of the Combined Maritime Forces, which includes naval ships and other assets from more than 20 nations. "Some navies in our coalition did not have the authority to conduct counter-piracy missions," Gortney said. "The establishment of CTF-151 will allow those nations to operate under the auspices of CTF-150, while allowing other nations to join CTF-151 to support our goal of deterring, disrupting and eventually bringing to justice the maritime criminals involved in piracy events."
This (UNOSAT) 3D perspective map illustrates the relative spatial density of reported pirate incidents in the Gulf of Aden for 2008 (as of 21 November).
