U.S. Navy countering Somali pirates with aggression

U.S. Navy countering Somali pirates with aggression The U.S. Navy is adopting more aggressive tactics to counter piracy off the coast of Somalia, helping last week to make the area free of captured vessels for the first time since February, a senior U.S. Navy commander in the region told the Washington Post.
   According to the newspaper report, the pirates, 'Somali clansmen and trained fighters armed with AK-47 assault rifles, operate in small skiffs as far as 200 miles offshore, according to the U.S. military. They have hijacked and held as many as six merchant ships for ransoms of millions of dollars since February.'
   The Navy, according to the story, has been able to stymie the pirates in recent months by controlling the territorial waters where the pirates typically flee after hijacking vessels, 'cutting off their access to fresh supplies.'
   The Navy has also destroyed pirate ships “as a repressive measure,” Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. Fifth Fleet, told the Post. “They were disabled” with gunfire, “cut adrift, and sunk as hazards to navigation.”