Pirates change tactics, adapt to Navy’s success
Piracy may have fallen off markedly in the Gulf of Aden and the South Korean navy may have recently retaken a pirated freighter, saving its crew, but neither success should be grounds for declaring victory, said the Navy’s top commander in the region.
Instead, he cautioned that the pirate threat, which is evolving and spreading far from African shores, calls for a more robust approach.
“We are facing a thinking opponent,” Vice Adm. Mark Fox, 5th Fleet commander, said in meeting with reporters Wednesday. “They know our red lines. They know our modes of operations.”
The two sides are locked in a maritime chess match. After increased hijackings of merchant ships by African pirates, NATO, aided by other nations including China, stepped up patrols through the Gulf of Aden. The pirates, who had launched raids from the Somali coast in small, short-range skiffs, countered with a new advance: motherships.
These ships are a “game changer,” Fox said. Pirates have turned large captured ships into floating bases, loaded with skiffs and weapons, he said; the vessels are outfitted with the fuel and supplies to head far out to sea while evading maritime patrols.