Motherships ‘behind attacks’

The motherships, which act as floating bases for smaller attack boats, are exchanging positions and discussing which vessels to hijack, said EU Navfor commander Real Admiral Philip Jones.
EU forces have discovered evidence of coordination on board the four motherships they have “taken out” since the start of the EU Atalanta operation last December, Adm Jones said.
“The motherships are exchanging information on their positions and on the ships they may attack,” he told a press conference in Brussels.
According to EU Navfor, there have been 102 pirate attacks since December, of which 31 were successful.
There have been an additional 39 approaches that have not led to attacks. Fifty-two pirates have been detained by EU navies in the region, 38 of whom have been landed in Kenya.
Some have already been prosecuted, it was reported.
The Brussels commander, who is based in London, said the anti-piracy force had successfully accompanied all World Food Programme ships seeking assistance.
Twenty-three WFP ships were escorted to Somalia in the first five months of the operation, delivering 130,000 cu metres of food aid, he said.
The admiral also claimed that the force’s second objective, to protect vulnerable commercial shipping, had resulted in a “significant reduction in the success rate of pirates”, even if the latest figures on the number of hijacked ships are roughly the same as when the Atalanta operation started.
The monsoon season at the beginning of this year was the main reason for a drop-off in attacks, he said.
Since then there had been a “resurgence”, with pirates operating up to 600 nm offshore. At this distance, EU surveillance planes can only fly for “a couple of hours”.