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Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa (OEF-HOA) is a component of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). The Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) is the primary military component assigned to accomplish the objectives of the mission. The naval components are the multinational Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) and Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) which operates under the direction of the United States Fifth Fleet. Both of these organizations have been historically part of United States Central Command. In February 2007, United States President George W. Bush announced the establishment of the United States Africa Command which took over all of the area of operations of CJTF-HOA in October 2008.
Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea affects a number of countries in West Africa as well as the wider international community. By 2011, it had become an issue of global concern. Pirates in the Gulf of Guinea are often part of heavily armed criminal enterprises, who employ violent methods to steal oil cargo. In 2012, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), Oceans Beyond Piracy and the Maritime Piracy Humanitarian Response Program reported that the number of vessels attacks by West African pirates had reached a world high, with 966 seafarers attacked during the year. According to the Control Risks Group, pirate attacks in the Gulf of Guinea had by mid-November 2013 maintained a steady level of around 100 attempted hijackings in the year, a close second behind the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia.
Piracy off the coast of Somalia occurs in the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel, and Somali Sea, in Somali territorial waters and other surrounding places and has a long and troubled history with different perspectives from different communities. It was initially a threat to international fishing vessels during the early 2000s, only to rapidly escalate and expand to international shipping during the War in Somalia (2006–2009).
Piracy in the 21st century has taken place in a number of waters around the world, including the Gulf of Guinea, Strait of Malacca, Sulu and Celebes Seas, Indian Ocean, and Falcon Lake.
Operation Ocean Shield was NATO's contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa (OEF-HOA), an anti-piracy initiative in the Indian Ocean, Guardafui Channel, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea. It follows the earlier Operation Allied Protector. Naval operations began on 17 August 2009 after being approved by the North Atlantic Council, the program was terminated on 15 December 2016 by NATO. Operation Ocean Shield focused on protecting the ships of Operation Allied Provider, which transported relief supplies as part of the World Food Programme's mission in the region. The initiative also helped strengthen the navies and coast guards of regional states to assist in countering pirate attacks. Additionally, China, Japan and South Korea sent warships to participate in these activities.
The following lists events that happened in 2009 in Somalia.
Operation Dawn 8: Gulf of Aden was a naval operation carried out by the Royal Malaysian Navy against pirates in the Indian Ocean on 20 January 2011. In response to the hijacking of MV Bunga Laurel, the Malaysian Shipborne Protection Team deployed an attack helicopter and 14 members of the naval counter-terrorism group PASKAL in two rigid-hulled inflatable boats to retake the vessel and rescue the crew. After one night of trailing the tanker, the Malaysian forces successfully retook the ship by force on 20 January 2011, resulting in the wounding of three and the capture of four out of 18 pirates, and all 23 vessel crewmembers rescued.
On 11 June 2015, eight Indonesian pirates hijacked the MT Orkim Harmony, a Malaysian tanker, in the South China Sea. The crew and the tanker were freed and recovered on 19 June near the southwest of Phú Quốc in Vietnam with the joint efforts of Royal Malaysian Navy, Royal Malaysian Air Force, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, Royal Australian Air Force, Vietnam Border Guard, Vietnam Coast Guard, Indonesian Navy and Royal Thai Navy.
On 18 November 2012, eleven Indonesian pirates hijacked MT Zafirah, a Malaysian tanker, in the South China Sea. The tanker crew was left by the pirates on a lifeboat in the sea two days after the hijacking but were subsequently rescued by Vietnamese fishing vessels on 21 November when their lifeboat was drifting around 118 nautical miles in the waters off Vietnam's southern Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province. All the pirates managed to be tracked by Vietnam Coast Guard and Vietnam People's Navy with information provided by Malaysian based International Maritime Bureau and Singaporean based RECAAP, which led to their arrest after a brief of standoff near Vũng Tàu port.
French shipbuilding firm Ocea has designed and sold a fast patrol boat it calls the Ocea FPB 72. As of June 2018 it has delivered FPB 72 vessels to Suriname, Nigeria and the Philippines.
NNS Badagry is an Ocea FPB 72 patrol boat operated by the Nigerian Navy.
NNS Bomadi (P176) is an Ocea FPB 72 patrol boat operated by the Nigerian Navy.
NNS Ose (P186) is a small patrol boat operated by the Nigerian Navy. She was commissioned in 2017, along with half a dozen sister ships.
Petrol piracy also sometimes called oil piracy or petro-piracy, is an act of piracy that specifically involves petroleum resources, or their transportation, consumption, and regulation. It should not be confused with the term oil war, as although both involve petroleum, petrol piracy always involves at least one of the aggressors being ship or boat-borne. Although, it may seem not as prevalent in today's modern society due to plummeting oil prices and lower attack rates, a number of specific incidents have still occurred in-addition to the fact that since the start of COVID-19 there has been an unprecedented resurgence in piracy incidents. In contrast to traditional piracy, petroleum ships are generally targeted over merchant, as it serves as a means to fight back against 'resource control' within the region.
As a practice of piracy, petro-piracy, also sometimes called oil piracy or petrol piracy, is defined as “illegal taking of oil after vessel hijacks, which are sometimes executed with the use of motorships” with huge potential financial rewards. Petro-piracy is mostly a practice that is connected to and originates from piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, but examples of petro-piracy outside of the Gulf of Guinea is not uncommon. At least since 2008, the Gulf of Guinea has been home to pirates practicing petro-piracy by targeting the region's extensive oil industry. Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has risen in the last years to become the hot spot of piracy globally with 76 actual and attempted attacks, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB). Most of these attacks in the Gulf of Guinea take place in inland or territorial waters, but recently pirates have been proven to venture further out to sea, e.g. crew members were kidnapped from the tanker David B. 220 nautical miles outside of Benin. Pirates most often targets vessels carrying oil products and kidnappings of crew for ransom. IMB reports that countries in the Gulf of Guinea, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Togo, Congo, and, especially, Nigeria, have experienced petro-piracy and kidnappings of crew as the most common trends of piracy attacks in the Gulf of Guinea.
Piracy kidnappings occur during piracy, when people are kidnapped by pirates or taken hostage. Article 1 of the United Nations International Convention against the Taking of Hostages defines a hostage-taker as "any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure, or to continue to detain another person in order to compel a third party namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or Juridical person, or a group of people, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition tor the release of the hostage commits the offense of taking of hostages ("hostage-taking") within the meaning of this convention." Kidnappers often try to obtain the largest financial reward possible in exchange for hostages, but piracy kidnappings can also be politically motivated.
2024 in piracy included 33 reports of maritime piracy and armed robbery against ships to the International Maritime Bureau during the first quarter of the year. Incidents included 24 vessels boarded, six of which experienced attempted attacks; two hijacked; and one fired upon. Crew continued to suffer violence, with 35 crew taken hostage, nine kidnapped, and one threatened during three first three months of the year.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Norte (8706090)" . Sea-web. S&P Global . Retrieved 22 July 2019.
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Norte (8706090)" . Equasis. Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy . Retrieved 22 July 2019.
- ↑ "Nigerian Navy concludes investigation on hijacked MT NORTE Vessel". Premium Times . 2013-11-27. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Dele Ezeoba, said the Nigerian Navy had concluded investigation on the suspects apprehended in connection with the hijacked MT NORTE vessel.
- 1 2 Mike Odiegwu (2013-08-19). "Navy kills 12 pirates in gun battle". The Nation . Retrieved 2018-06-15.
The bandits numbering 16 were said to have hijacked an oil vessel, MT NORTE, loaded with 17,000 metric tonnes of Petrol Motor Spirit (PMS), off Nigerian waters in the Gulf of Guinea.
- ↑ Michael McNicholas (2016). Maritime Security: An Introduction. Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 177. ISBN 9780128036730 . Retrieved 2018-06-15.
- ↑ Shola O’Neil, Mike Odiegwu (2013-08-20). "Navy kills 12 suspected pirates". The Nation (Nigeria) . Port Harcourt . Retrieved 2018-07-17.
He said FOB FORMOSO despatched two newly- acquired boats, NNS BADAGRY and NNS BOMADI, and NNS Delta ordered NNS OBULA to join the rescue.
- ↑ "Nigerian Navy Recovers Hijacked Oil Vessel, Kills 12 Pirates". Sahara Reporters . 2013-08-19. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
'An agreed drop point was reached but the suspected militants refused to disembark as earlier agreed, obviously playing for time and darkness to set in. They finally agreed to disembark from MT Norte at 2045hrs on 17th of August, 2013 on condition that only one Naval vessel would remain in the vicinity of the MT Norte.'
- ↑ "Piracy in West Africa: Nigerian Navy Gun Down 12 Pirates at the Oil-Rich Niger Delta / Africa News]". National Turk . 2013-08-13. Retrieved 2018-06-14.
'Efforts to get the hijackers to stop and surrender proved abortive as they engaged NNS Badagry in a gun battle, the gun battle between NNS Badagry and the pirates lasted for about 30 minutes after which they were over-powered, 12 were killed and four of them surrendered by raising up their hands,' a statement from the Navy stated.
- ↑ "With no Prosecutions of Pirates in the Gulf of Guinea, Business is Booming". Piracy Report . Retrieved 2018-06-17.
On 15 August 2013 the MT Norte, carrying 17,000 metric tonnes of gasoline was hijacked at an undisclosed location in the Gulf of Guinea. The Notre sent an emergency signal. The Nigerian Navy intercepted the vessel on 17 August. The pirates escaped in a speed boat with the Navy in pursuit. During a gun battle 12 pirates were killed and four arrested.