Winning Battle

Efforts to combat piracy off the Somali coast have reduced the number of successful attacks on merchant ships, though the battle is far from over, a senior British navy officer has said.

“We are not fighting a losing battle. There has not been a successful piracy attack on merchant vessels since the end of April,” Commodore Tim Fraser, a regional maritime commander, told journalists aboard the amphibious assault ship Albion.

Commodore Fraser, stated that there are currently 390 hostages held by Somali pirates on 19 vessels.

However in a rather confusing statement he claimed that “big merchant ships are now less vulnerable and rarely attacked by pirates. There are no successful attacks on big trade ships by Somali pirates,” he said. “The last was in 2004”. Which is just wrong…