Now that monsoon season is over, the attacks of Somali pirates on vessels traversing the busy shipping lanes off the Horn of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Somali coast has resumed.Wednesday night two Somali pirate skiffs tried to roll up on an 18,000 ton ship cruising 250 miles off the Somali coast that they thought was a freighter.
After beginning their attack run by firing Kalashnikov rifles at the 525 foot ship in question, they noticed too late that the ship they were attempting to bumrush was a French naval vessel, the La Somme.
The La Somme just happens to be the French naval command vessel for the multinational naval task force working to suppress the pirate attacks.
The ship chased the pirates for an hour after they realized their mistake, turned and tried to run back to the Somali coast. The La Somme eventually caught one of the skiffs and arrested five buccaneers.Score one for the multi-national anti-piracy task force this time.
But they still have a difficult job in trying to patrol two million square miles of ocean with just two dozen ships and a single patrol aircraft.
Advantage pirates. But not if they can't tell the difference between cargo ships and armed naval vessels.