US announces anti-piracy force

2009-01-08 18:13

Manama - The US Fifth Fleet announced on Thursday the establishment of a new international naval force to fight piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean after a wave of hijackings off the coast of Somalia.

"The Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) has established Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) specifically for counter-piracy operations," the Bahrain-based fleet said in a statement.

US Navy Rear Admiral Terence McKnight has been named commander of the task force, which is expected to be "fully operational by the middle of January", according to the statement.

CMF Commander, US Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, said in the statement that the new task force would focus exclusively on the fight against increasingly bold acts of piracy being carried out by pirates operating from largely lawless Somalia.

"Some navies in our coalition did not have the authority to conduct counter-piracy missions," the statement quoted Gortney as saying.

The new taskforce would allow other countries to "support our goal of deterring, disrupting and eventually bringing to justice the maritime criminals involved in piracy events", he added.

Pirates attacked more than 100 ships in 2008 off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden, raking in an estimated $120m in ransom money.

Their biggest prize was the Saudi super-tanker Sirius Star which they seized on November 15 of last year, laden with 100 million dollars worth of oil.

The CMF consists of more than 20 countries.

- AFP