Yesterday's hijacking of the U.S. owned and manned cargo ship in the Indian Ocean has created quite a stir. Somali pirates overtook the ship and its crew of 20 Americans about 400 miles off the coast of Somalia. The crew regained control of the ship, although the ship's captain is being held by the pirates after they reneged on an agreement to exchange him for three of their own captured by the crew.
A U.S. Navy warship is en route to the scene of the hijacking, and then things may really get interesting. The U.S. may attempt to free the captain if negotiations fail as we're not big on paying ransoms like most European countries. The pirates are currently holding the captain on a lifeboat which is thought to have run out of fuel.
Today's hijacking is not an isolated incident. Piracy has been rampant off of the East African coast for years. But pirates have stepped up their activities the past several weeks. And in just the past four days, seven international ships have been hijacked in the region.
Over at the U.S. Naval Institute blog, Eagle1 offers a solution to reduce piracy in the region: establish convoys for ships moving off the coast of East Africa, flood the main sea lanes with surveillance, and try to discern the patterns of the pirates. "[I]f you aren't going to invade Somalia to take out pirate havens, you don't really have a lot of other options," he says. The U.S. and Europe don't seem to have the stomach to hit the well known pirate bases in Eyl and other locations. The other option is to continue to pay the pirates, who are raking in hundreds of millions a year.
