Russia to U.S.: Let's Team up, to Fight Pirates

The U.S. and Russia don't agree on much, these days. But nothing brings countries together like a common enemy. And they've found one, in East Africa's increasingly-sophisticated, increasingly-bold pirates.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says his country "will work with the U.S. and European Union to fight piracy off the African coast and wants naval forces gathering in the area to coordinate their efforts," according to the AP.

Lavrov spoke as a Russian warship with commandos aboard headed to the waters off Somalia, where pirates are holding a Ukrainian ship with a cargo of battle tanks and a crew that includes two Russians.

"Russia aims to prevent pirates from causing mayhem," Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying. He said nations with naval vessels in the area, which include the United States, should work together against pirates. "It would be useful to coordinate the naval forces that are deployed," Lavrov said, according to state-run RIA-Novosti. "It seems everything is leading to this."

Russia's team-up talk comes as NATO is getting ready to escort vessels transporting World Food Program aid to Somalia.

Most of the region's pirates are still low-tech, straight-ahead attackers, striking easy targets close to shore. But some of the pirates "have recently begun venturing further out into the Indian Ocean – up to 250-300 miles off shore, which requires sophisticated navigational skills and the use of GPS," notes Heritage Foundation research fellow Ariel Cohen.

Pirates use modern technologies and spies to gather intelligence, select targets, coordinate attacks and conduct negotiations... [M]ore sophisticated and well-organized pirates have numerous speedboats launched from a larger "mother ship" that can overwhelm a victim with their number of vessels, or cut off avenues of escape. There are reports that pirates operate a number of "mother ships" simultaneously, making tracking and interdiction even more difficult.

Pirates on Friday freed 20 Filipino seaman from a hijacked ship they've held for more than 11 weeks. They also released an Iranian bulk carrier and its 29 crewmen after seven weeks of negotiations. Then the pirates turned around, and quickly took another ship, the cement-hauling, Panama-flagged Wail.
Wired

This amounts to an admissions by the Russians that they don't have two pontoons to weld to the bottom of a truck a navy they can depend on.

I say we barter with them for more cooperation.

There were lots more interesting stories tonight at Wired, go read them all.