By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
South Korean naval forces deployed off the coast of Somalia rescued a Bahaman commercial ship from pirates Wednesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Seoul said.
In the seventh operation of its kind, a group of 30 UDT/SEAL forces aboard rigid inflatable speedboats, backed by a Lynx attack helicopter, seized seven pirates trying to hijack the cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden. They conducted the operation at the request of the Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, a multinational naval task force to combat piracy in the Somalia littorals.
It was the first time that South Korean forces of the Cheonghae unit have captured pirates on a ship. Previous operations aimed at driving away suspected pirate boats from commercial ships used warning shots fired by the unit's Lynx helicopter.
The pirates were released after being given warnings, JCS officials said.
The South Korean unit, consisting of a 4,500-ton destroyer, began operations in Somali waters in April to escort the country's commercial vessels.
About 500 South Korean cargo ships sail through the piracy-stricken Gulf of Aden every year, and some 150 of them are believed to be vulnerable to hijacking due to their size and speed.
If required, the unit is also supposed to monitor, inspect, stop and seize pirates' vessels as part of the CTF 151, under the command of the Combined Forces Maritime Component Command based in Bahrain.
The task force is responsible for maritime security from the Red Sea down the east coast of Africa and into the Arabian Sea toward Pakistan and India.
Piracy attacks around the world more than doubled to 240 from 114 during the first six months of this year, compared with the same period in 2008, according to the ICC International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center (IMB).
The rise in overall numbers is due almost entirely to increased Somali pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden and off the east coast of Somalia, with 86 and 44 incidents reported in each area, respectively.
In 2008, there were 111 incidents including 42 vessels hijackings in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia. So far in 2009, there have been 31 successful hijackings by Somali pirates, including one attack off Oman's coast.
Nearly 20,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year, heading to and from the Suez Canal.
gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr
