Posted on 11/11/2005 8:45:41 AM PST by 1066AD
'Mother ship' behind pirate raids Pirate attacks off Somalia's coast are being organised from command vessels, or "mother ships", the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has said. It says speedboats are being launched from ships that prowl the routes of the Indian Ocean, searching for targets.
Last week, a luxury cruise liner off Somalia's coast was attacked by pirates with rocket-propelled grenades.
The IMB says pirates are still holding seven ships and their crews, seized in the world's most dangerous waters.
In the past few days, at least four other vessels are reported to have been attacked.
'Out of control'
Captain Pottengal Mukundan, director of the IMB, says pirate attacks are being launched from at least two "mother ships".
Capt Mukundan says speedboats carry out the attempted hijacks before returning to the larger vessels floating at sea.
This means even ships sailing far off the coast are vulnerable to attack. He says the situation off the coast of Somalia appears to be completely out of control.
The IMB has recorded more than 30 hijack attempts in the region since March.
These latest attacks follow a thwarted attempt by pirates in small boats to commandeer the luxury liner, the Seabourn Spirit, which was steaming some 100 miles (160km) off the Somali coast last week.
But the liner's crew took evasive action, repelling the attackers without returning fire.
To scare off the pirates, they deployed a military-grade sonic weapon, capable of causing permanent damage to hearing from a distance of more than 300 metres (984ft).
Somalia has been without any effective government for 14 years.
Despite attempts to establish a new administration earlier this year, the country remains divided between rival warlords.
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/4428808.stm
ROFLMAO! You need Sean Penn in that photo, though. ;)
LOL! My husband looks so much like Sean Penn, it's scarey. Luckily, their politics differ greatly. ;)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1502317/posts
While that sounds like an interesting weapon, all that does is leave them alive to attack their next victim. Real "military grade" weapons would have cured the problem for good (at least for that boatload of pirates). It sounds like it's time for some decoy ships armed to the teeth that can take care of business.
The Tourist Guy was there too ???
I didn't see him in New Orleans. Maybe he was on vacation during the Hurricanes...
Put JF Kerry at the helm next time.
Sink the mother ship while the kiddies are away. When they go home, there is no home. Let the suckers starve to death.
Such as the Japanese ship carrying Australian POWs, that was fired on and sunk. The USS Pampanito (berthed, for now, in San Francisco) rescued them all and doubled the capacity of the already-crowded sub. Quite a story.
The navy should deck out a ship to look like a cruise and then blow them out of the water
"Allah Aaaaaaarrrrggggh".
But is it coordinatin an attack on the stone hinges as known by the chiefs of joint ?
Gotta love Rita X
I'm not even certain any "motherships" exist. I am only postulating that if they exist, they may already have hostages on board, so we will need a different response than a reflexive "blow it out of the water." It will have to be treated as a shipboard hostage rescue situation. (IF the motherships exist at all.)
Our subs in the Pacific didn't know the "hell ships" were full of allied POWs when they torpedoed them.
followed by one of these
then it could release one of these
or one of these
There's even a term for that sort of thing. A "Q-Ship". Why "Q", I haven't clue. Both sides in both world wars used them though, both offensively, as commerce raiders, and defensively, as anti-commerce raiders.
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