The Combat Operator

Captain once held by pirates urges military protection, armed crews

May 1, 2009 Piracy, Somalia Leave a comment

Capt. Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama says, ‘And I don’t mean a security guard. I don’t mean a mall cop. I mean someone who’s sufficiently trained.’ His boss disagrees.

By Rebecca Cole at LA Times

Reporting from Washington — The freed captain of a merchant ship attacked by pirates near Somalia last month called Thursday for military protection and armed crew members to thwart attacks in dangerous waters.

Capt. Richard Phillips, skipper of the Maersk Alabama, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it was the “responsibility of the U.S. government” to protect any ship flying an American flag, through military escorts or onboard squads of highly trained security forces.

He added that an armed brigade of specially trained senior crew members also could deter pirate attacks in certain situations.

“And I don’t mean a security guard. I don’t mean a mall cop. I mean someone who’s sufficiently trained,” Phillips said

Phillips and the private shipping line’s chairman, John Clancey, differed in their prescriptions for addressing piracy in testimony Thursday. Clancey said arming and training crew officers would be prohibitively expensive and would result in a potentially deadly arms race with pirates.

But the recommendations from Phillips, widely regarded as a hero for selflessly trading his freedom in exchange for that of his 20-person crew, are likely to pressure the U.S. military to consider steps he outlined in the hearing. At the same time, military officials have said that world navies could not protect every ship, and they have recommended that vessel operators adopt more aggressive defenses.

Since the Maersk Alabama attack, the military has held several meetings with shipping companies, looking for better ways to deter pirates. Clancey said those talks were continuing.

He said Maersk Inc. had more than 500 merchant ships at sea, making the cost of training and arming crews a “very tall order,” and not one with guaranteed results.

“Our belief is that arming merchant sailors may result in the acquisition of ever more lethal weapons and tactics by the pirates, a race that merchant sailors cannot win,” Clancey said.

He also pointed out that most nations did not permit armed ships to enter ports or dock. Besides talks with military officials, Clancey said ships were being “hardened,” including the addition of electrified rails and pressure hoses.

Phillips agreed that more training in anti-piracy tactics and upgrading vessels would be an improvement, but said, “There is no way they can be foolproof.”

Phillips, 53, emphasized that the success of any method would hinge on a clear chain of command — one that ends with the captain.

“In the heat of an attack, there can only be one final decision-maker,” he said.

Phillips called piracy a “crime of opportunity,” and said pirates were shifting their tactics as quickly as shipping companies made changes to foil them.

“There’s no silver bullet here,” he said. “One solution is not going to solve this problem.”

Panel members expressed interest in the idea of arming crews.

“Historically we have deputized citizens to engage in law enforcement activities, going way back to the posses,” said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), the committee chairman.

Terrorists Finding Safe Havens in East Africa

Apr 29, 2009 Piracy, Somalia Leave a comment

My thanks to Jason at LES for bringing this story to my attention.  The piracy threat and with it the counter measures will change very quickly in HOA if/when Islamic terrorists exploit the relative easy access to commercial shipping.  Wouldn’t it be ironic if Islamic terrorists indirectly fixed the piracy problem.  A single suicide attack similar to the one launched against the USS Cole in back in 2000 would dramatically change the industries position on the use of armed guards.

Jake

________________________________________________________

By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press

WASHINGTON–There is growing evidence that battle-hardened extremists are filtering out of safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into East Africa, bringing sophisticated terrorist tactics that include suicide attacks.

The alarming shift, according to U.S. military and counterterrorism officials, fuels concern that Somalia is increasingly on a path to become the next Afghanistan — a sanctuary where al-Qaida-linked groups could train and plan their threatened attacks against the western world.

So far, officials say the number of foreign fighters who have moved from southwest Asia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to the Horn of Africa is small, perhaps two to three dozen.

But a similarly small cell of militant plotters was responsible for the devastating 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And the cluster of militants now believed to be operating inside East Africa could pass on sophisticated training and attack techniques gleaned from seven years at war against the U.S. and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

“There is a level of activity that is troubling, disturbing,” Gen. William “Kip” Ward, head of U.S. Africa Command, told The Associated Press. “When you have these vast spaces that are just not governed it provides a haven for support activities, for training to occur.”

Ward added that American officials already are seeing extremist factions in East Africa sharing information and techniques.

Several military and counterterrorism officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters cautioned that the movements of the al-Qaida militants do not suggest an abandonment of the ungoverned Pakistan border region as a safe haven.

Instead, the shift is viewed by the officials more as an expansion of al-Qaida’s influence, and a campaign to gather and train more recruits in a region already rife with militants.

Last month, Osama bin Laden made it clear in a newly released audiotape that al-Qaida has set its sights on Somalia, an impoverished and largely lawless country in the Horn of Africa. In the 11-minute tape released to Internet sites, bin Laden is heard urging Somalis to overthrow their new moderate Islamist president and to support their jihadist “brothers” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Iraq.

Officials said that in recent years they have seen occasional signs that sophisticated al-Qaida terror techniques are gaining ground in East Africa. Those harbingers include a coordinated series of suicide bombings in Somalia in October.

In the past, officials said, suicide attacks tended to be frowned on by African Muslims, creating something of an impediment to al-Qaida’s efforts to sell that aspect of its terrorism tactics.

But on Oct. 29, 2008, suicide bombers killed more than 20 people in five attacks targeting a U.N. compound, the Ethiopian consulate, the presidential palace in Somaliland’s capital and two intelligence facilities in Puntland.

The coordinated assaults, officials said, amounted to a watershed moment, suggesting a new level of sophistication and training. The incident also marked the first time that a U.S. citizen — a young Somali man from Minneapolis — carried out a suicide bombing.

The foreign fighters moving into East Africa complicate an already-rising crescendo of terror threats in the region. Those threats have come from the Somalia-based al-Shabab extremist Islamic faction and from al-Qaida in East Africa, a small, hard-core group also known by the acronym EEAQ.

While not yet considered an official al-Qaida franchise, EEAQ has connections to the top terror leaders and was implicated in the August 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 225 people. The bombings were al-Qaida’s precursors to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a plot spawned by a small cell of operatives as far back as 1992. Four men accused as al-Qaida plotters were later convicted in federal court in New York for those bombings.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and several other EEAQ members remain under indictment in the United States for their alleged participation in those bombings. Mohammed is on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list with a reward of up to $5 million on his head.

Al-Qaida has the skills while al-Shabab has the manpower, said one senior military official familiar with the region. The official said EEAQ appears to be a small cell of a few dozen operatives who rarely sleep in the same place twice and are adept at setting up temporary training camps that vanish days later.

What worries U.S. military leaders, the official said, is the that EEAQ and al-Shabab may merge in training and operations, potentially spreading al-Qaida’s more extremist jihadist beliefs to thousands of clan-based Somali militants, who so far have been engaged in internal squabbling.

The scenario could become even more worrisome, the officials said, if the foreign fighters transplant their skills at bomb-making and insurgency tactics to the training camps in East Africa.

Africa experts, however, said it won’t be easy for Islamic extremists to win many converts in East Africa.

Francois Grignon, Africa program director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization, said in an interview that many clan members generally practice a more moderate Islam, and militants are not inclined to join a fight they do not see as their own.

The U.S., he said, needs to encourage the new government in Somalia to deal with the growing terror threats there and to marginalize the jihadists so they are not able to sustain their activities in Somalia.

Ward said U.S. Africa Command is working with a number of nations to build their ability to maintain security. But he said commanders are less able to do much in Somalia, where the new government is still fragile.

Meanwhile, he said, officials continue to watch as the ties between the terror groups grow.

“I think they’re all a threat,” said Ward. “Right now it’s clearly a threat that the Africans have, but in today’s global society that threat can be exported anywhere with relative ease.”

Contractor killed in Afghanistan ambush

Apr 28, 2009 Industry News, Memoriam 2 Comments

By Rachel Myers

“Too many times we stand aside, and let the waters slip away; ‘Til what we put off ’til tomorrow, has now become today; So don’t you sit upon the shoreline and say you’re satisfied; Choose to chance the rapids, and dare to dance the tide.”

- Garth Brooks, “The River”

Craig Fuller’s last moments were nowhere near the exquisite shoreline of his most-cherished song.

The 33-year-old Cape Coral man lived his last days in the dust-choked, rocky terrain of a land marred by decades of war.

He couldn’t tear himself away from it, though family and friends had pleaded with him.

His mission was to help, and the Marine Corps veteran would not abandon it.

On Saturday, Fuller’s team of security/construction contractors were ambushed in a roadside attack as they traveled from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul.

Fuller’s family said the team was returning from delivering food supplies and fixing a leaky septic system in one of the area’s poorest border regions. After an hourlong firefight, Fuller was killed, along with his Afghan team leader, a native known only as Zia.

Fuller’s close friend, Jeff Hermey, also of Cape Coral, was injured by shrapnel. Hermey is returning home later this week.

A third Lee County resident, Lynn Terhune - office manager for Fuller’s company, Afghan Full Road Construction & Security Inc. - is remaining in Kabul. She was not present when the attack occurred.

An ambush

As Terhune, of Fort Myers, described in an e-mail Monday to her daughter, attacks along the perilous roadway are common.

The eight-member team was aware of the risks, and as part of a security team, they were heavily armed, which meant the militants couldn’t immediately overpower them.

“Miraculously only two died during this 1.5-hour attack,” Terhune wrote.

It’s unknown if any militants were killed.

Katherine Schweit, spokeswoman for the Washington field office of the FBI, confirmed her agency is working closely with officials in Kabul to investigate the attack.

“The FBI has the authority to investigate crimes against Americans overseas,” Schweit said.

If suspects are identified and arrested, it is possible they could be brought to the U.S. for trial. However, because the investigation is active, Schweit could not discuss what is believed to have happened on that dangerous road at dusk.

According to a story published Sunday by The Associated Press, there are 3,847 security contractors working in Afghanistan. That number is expected to expand as the number of troops there swell under the recent direction of President Barack Obama.

Fuller, after working for a string of private contractors during the past five years - including DynCorp International and Blackwater - decided to start his own security/construction firm. He returned to Afghanistan in January.

His family said he was quickly becoming exhausted, working tirelessly with his team to provide security to those who needed to deliver valuable supplies and construction help for those living in the crumbling, war-torn infrastructure.

But Fuller felt drawn by the great need.

“He impacted so many lives,” said his stepmother, Bert Fuller. “So many lives.”

Missing Craig

Jerry Fuller, 63, returned from Afghanistan on Thursday.

His son was growing weary, and he needed his rock. The two were not only father and son - they were absolute best friends. They even had shoulder surgery at the same time and went through therapy together.

“I told him, you’re taking this father-son thing a little too seriously,” Jerry Fuller joked.

Jerry Fuller stayed three months.

But in Afghanistan, the grainy dirt fragments that constantly blanket the air were too much for Jerry Fuller’s lungs.

“I couldn’t breathe there, couldn’t function,” he said. “I had to come home.”

He left, telling his son he was so proud, and urging him to return home soon.

Two days later, his son was killed.

On Monday, friends streamed through Jerry Fuller’s Cape Coral home, locking in long embraces.

Those who knew Craig Fuller say his name fit him perfectly.

“He lived his life ‘fuller’ than anyone else,” said friend Mike Hannon, 26, of Cape Coral.

Fuller’s early years were spent in New York, and he moved to Cape Coral with his brother, Ken, and sister, Cary Ann, when he was 8. His friends became too numerous to count.

“He would do anything to help anyone,” said friend Kyla Brouillette, 27. “He was like, ‘Oh, you need a place to stay, you’re welcome here.’ Or, ‘Oh, you need a car, use mine.’ Just anything for anybody.”

Last Christmas, he called home and arranged to send money anonymously to a local family.

At Jerry Fuller’s kitchen table Monday, sun spilled over photos of Craig, images that told the story of his exuberant life. Bert Fuller clasped her husband’s hands. He tightly shut his tear-filled eyes, and shook his head.

In happier times, Craig Fuller was an energetic student at Cape Middle School. He later graduated from Eustis High School in Lake County. From there, he joined the Marine Corps, and his work ethic drove him quickly through the ranks to staff sergeant, his family said.

“I realized my son was no longer my baby when I traveled to see him in Buenos Aires, and ambassadors were bowing to him,” Jerry Fuller said. “They thanked me for raising such a wonderful son. I was so proud of him.”

After he left the Marines, Craig Fuller came back to Lee County and founded “The Scrapyard,” a boxing enterprise. That’s where the 5-foot-11, 160-pound Fuller met 6-foot, 220-pound Jeff Hermey.

“Jeff thought it would be an easy fight,” Jerry Fuller said. “He underestimated Craig’s heart.”

It has long been disputed who actually won the fight, but the two were close ever since.

Craig Fuller had no shortage of friends, his father said.

Later this week, they will gather to honor him during a service at the Iwo Jima statue near the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Cape Coral. Later, his ashes will be scattered in the mountains of Tennessee. Fuller once told his father during a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains that it was “the closest to heaven I’ve ever been.”

And after he sacrificed everything surrounded by suffering, those who loved him don’t doubt that heaven is where Craig Fuller rests.

Self Regulation? Wouldn’t that be nice…

Apr 27, 2009 Commentary, Jake's Posts 3 Comments

By Jake Allen

The UK government last week issued a statement encouraging PSCs to ‘self regulate.’ In doing so government officials have, I my opinion, missed a huge opportunity to help us advance the cause of legitimizing our work as security contractors. Perhaps that is their long-term aim? I am not against self regulation, who could be? But it’s hardly sufficient, at this stage, to achieve legitimacy and sustainability as an industry. And, to be quite honest self regulation is such a minimum threshold standard to abide by that it should, though it apparently does not, go without saying.

On the one hand I have to commend the government for stopping short of actually doing anything like interfering in something they clearly have no clue about. The only thing worse than doing nothing would be to jump into the fray and start implementing moronic legislation that is unworkable and only serves to hamstring both companies and governments and thus leaving in the lurch the very people who most need protection. Since the authorities in the UK clearly don’t have a plan the best thing to do would have been nothing, and that includes not commenting at all on the subject since that only draws attention to themselves as not being willing or prepared to take or recommend real constructive action.

The concept of self-regulation is so primitive and basic that PMCs should view this as a condescending slap in the face. It’s like being told you need to learn how to wipe your own ass. Apparently they don’t even think we are capable of that lest we would have done it already. I am starting to wonder if they are correct. Perhaps they are observing, as I increasingly am, that the term Private Military Company is a big misnomer since very few PSC/PMCs adopt the discipline inherent in our uniformed military cousins.

Asking PMCs to self regulate is like asking Wall Street banks to self-regulate. We are long past self-regulation. We’ve had ample opportunity to do that in the past decade and we could have done it if we had had real visionary industry leadership as opposed to self-centred corporate greed out to make only fast money at the expense of long-term sustainable revenues. What other fledgling industry can you think of that from day one is already filled with talent rich people who are pre-trained to work in a universally structured and disciplined way? Security contractors are for the most part former military. They by design are already comfortable with rules, regulations, reward, punishment, discipline…structure. This industry and all its participants would expect to fall directly into an environment built on training and accountability. Yet the moment they take off their green uniforms and put on their 5.11s all pretense for responsibility for our actions goes out the window. I ask you, what is that if it not a failure of leadership?

Would’ve…could’ve…should’ve

Sure we could have held ourselves up as a shining example of self-regulation. We could right now be showing the world how we created an industry standard for and how we all signed on to it and how we agreed to be audited by independent parties. Sure we could have run out of town some of the fly-by-night outfits that popped up in Iraq with nothing more than a box of AK’s and website to their name. But no, we turned a blind eye to that kind of self-policing a long time ago and because of our failure to act then we have no credibility to stand on in doing it ourselves now. The only chapter left in this story to write will be when we look back on the period between 2003 and 2009 and we say, “Gee whiz fellas, why didn’t we clean up our own act. We could have built a legitimate, sustainable, dare I say even respectable business model.” No, we will look back on these days as the missed opportunity they really are. A time when former military men, now corporate CEOs got out-foxed and beaten to the punch by a bunch of fat, balding politicians eager to show their constituents that they put an end to our existence.

If discipline is defined as doing what is right in the ABSENCE of supervision we are far from a disciplined force. More of a rag-tag band of carnies traveling the world and burning every bridge when we leave town. Undisciplined forces are untrustworthy and entities that are untrustworthy will not be called on in the future to participate in the actions of our age. We certainly will never be given latitude to operate independently in support of a failing foreign state in the way what Executive Outcomes was able to do. To be honest, right now 9 out of 10 PSCs in business today could not carry the water for EO and should never be given the responsibility they had because they are not capable of achieving even a portion of their success.

Perhaps what we need now is to feel the Corporals lash that will come in the form of heavy-handed government regulation designed in our absence and forced upon us without our input. The only thing preventing that today is the fact that the Brown and Obama administrations are too busy focusing on the economy to deal with the pesky issue of unregulated PSCs. Rest assured our day will come. We are on the government ‘to do’ list. We will receive our summons in due time. The question is what will our recent record be when we are called onto the carpet to give an accounting of ourselves? Will we have a recent record of productive and constructive contribution to the ‘big picture’? Will we have in place a set of governing principles by which we hold ourselves accountable in a meaningful way. Or will we continue to be perceived only as vultures who grow fat and on the carnage created by war?

Though our revenues may increase in proximity to armed conflict that alone does not inherently make us a negative as it is governments themselves who set into motion these conflicts through actions or inaction of their own. For our part we have total control over how our participation is viewed.

Perception is reality

PSC actions in support of combat operations and reconstruction projects is a fact not lost on our enemies or non-combatants present in the combat zone. Non-combatants in particular do not distinguish between U.S. companies, South African companies, British companies or teams from anywhere else. In the case of Iraq anyone not ID’d as being Iraqi is immediately and permanently associated with ‘the Americans’ or ‘the occupiers’. Our behaviour affects ourselves as it affect our brothers in uniform, and vice versa. In short this means that all PSC are, like it or not, for good or for bad, representing U.S. foreign policy. Our actions will reflect well or poorly on the coalition governments and the entire effort to rebuild the country into an ally that we can trade with and perhaps one day put faith into.

There is no status-quo in combat operations. You are either gaining or losing tactical advantage. We as PSCs are either helping or hurting the war and reconstruction effort. To the extent that ‘self regulation’ helps our country advance its foreign policy aims I can support it. But if our recent performance is any indication of industry leadership I keep my expectations very low.

Similarly there is no status quo in public perception of what PSCs do. We are either contributing positively or negatively to the greater effort. That perception is within our control. It starts by running a disciplined team, site, contract and company. It builds by having the disciplined companies forming an alliance to build a framework for what security services are and what that standard is. We can take the lead and do it ourselves in collaboration with other key stakeholders or we can continue to do nothing and then wait for the hammer to one day fall. The choice is ours.

Italy cruise ship fires on Somali pirates

Apr 26, 2009 Piracy 1 Comment

Associated Press

ROME — An Italian cruise ship fended off a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia, with its security forces exchanging fire with the bandits, the commander said Saturday.

Cmdr. Ciro Pinto told Italian state radio that six men in a small white boat approached the Msc Melody and opened fire Saturday night, but retreated after security forces aboard the cruise ship returned fire.

Domenico Pellegrino, head of the ship-owner Msc Cruises, told ANSA news agency that all 1,500 passengers and crew aboard the Melody were safe, and credited Pinto for his “cool-headed” handling of the incident.

The attack occurred about 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the Seychelles. The ship was on a 22-day cruise from Durban, South Africa, to Genoa, Italy.

ANSA said the ship was now headed as scheduled to the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

Pirates have attacked more than 100 ships off the Somali coast over the last year, reaping an estimated $1 million in ransom for each successful hijacking, according to analysts and country experts.

Another Italian-owned vessel remains in the hands of pirates. The Italian-flagged tugboat Buccaneer was seized off Somalia on April 11 with 16 crew members aboard.

Petraeus suggests ships have armed guards

Apr 26, 2009 Industry News, Piracy, Somalia 5 Comments

The News & Observer

WASHINGTON - The global shipping industry should consider placing armed guards on its boats to ward off pirates who have become increasingly violent, the U.S. military commander who oversees the African coastline said Friday.

Gen. David Petraeus told a House committee that just trying to outrun or block pirates from boarding cargo ships isn’t enough to deter sea bandits off Somalia who are becoming more aggressive.

The shipping industry has resisted arming their boats, which would deny them port in some nations.

Petraeus said defensive preparations short of armed guards “can work. You can have water hoses and others that can make it more difficult,” he said. But he added, “It’s tough to be on the end of a water hose if the other guy is on the end of an RPG [a rocket-propelled grenade launcher]. So you’ve got to think your way through that calculation as well.”

UK Foreign Office to propose self-regulation for private military firms

Apr 24, 2009 Industry News 1 Comment

Gates Says More Civilians Are Needed In Afghanistan

Apr 24, 2009 Industry News 7 Comments

By Kevin Maurer, Associated Press

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - Defense Secretary Robert Gates yesterday told Marines being deployed to Afghanistan that a US victory there would look similar to progress in Iraq, but he cautioned that more civilians with skills beyond the battlefield will be needed.

The Obama administration has called up 17,000 more troops to supplement the 38,000 American troops already fighting a resurgence of the Taliban. It said last month it would send several hundred citizens, from agronomists to economists, to work on reconstruction and development issues as part of the military’s counterinsurgency campaign.

That has proven to be difficult, and the Pentagon said yesterday that reservists, who often have the skills needed in such a buildup, might be asked to fill the gap.

“I am concerned that we will not get the civilian surge into Afghanistan as quickly as we are getting troops into Afghanistan,” Gates said during a daytrip to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.

He said he is asking for volunteers who have specific skills “who might serve as a bridge, getting them out of there quickly, and then bringing them back when their civilian replacements are hired.”

But Lieutenant General Dennis McCarthy, head of the Reserve Officers Association, which has 68,000 members, worries that such a plan would harm unit readiness and integrity and questions how volunteering for such jobs would affect reservists’ regular service time.

Radio: T. Christian Miller

Apr 20, 2009 Jake's Posts, Podcasts, Radio 6 Comments

This week on COR the guest was T. Christian Miller of ProPublica.org.  ‘T’ is a veteran investigative journalist who spent over a decade working for the LA Times in a number of tough AOs including Colombia and Iraq with a particular emphasis on the excesses of wartime contracting.  He’s also the author of Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives and Corporate Greed in Iraq.  T recently joined ProPublica.org where he has written a series of articles about the tough time many injured contractors are facing upon their return home.  Check out those articles here.

I hope you enjoy the program.

Jake

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Pirates more skilled and organised

Apr 20, 2009 Piracy, Somalia Leave a comment

THE British naval officer commanding the fleet of European warships sent to deter Somali pirates has warned that the pirates are becoming “better-armed and more professional”.

Rear-Admiral Philip Jones, who is in charge of the six warships attached to the European Union Naval Force for Counter-Piracy, said that while the force had had some success deterring “amateur” attacks in the Gulf of Aden, recent hijackings in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia appeared to be the work of new, better-organised gangs which could range far out to sea in so-called mother ships.

“In the Gulf of Aden we saw a lot of opportunist attacks from people who are part-time fishermen,” Rear-Admiral Jones said.

“The more recent attackers seem to be more sophisticated, with access to better arms and equipment.” The foreign anti-piracy patrols were merely “scratching the surface” and the only real solution was for proper security on the lawless Somali mainland.

A spate of attacks in the past fortnight, which included the abduction of the captain of a US-flagged cargo ship, Maersk Alabama, comes after a lull of nearly three months. Rear-Admiral Jones said that was partly due to the recent monsoons.

He said the pirates were less easily deterred if a ship put up a fight and the prospect of earning millions of dollars from ransoms meant most pirates deemed the risks worth taking.

On Saturday, Dutch commandos freed 16 Yemeni fishermen taken hostage on their boat, and briefly detained nine suspected pirates who had forced their captives to use the boat as a “mother ship” during an unsuccessful attack on a Greek-owned ship, the Handytankers Magic.

A Dutch defence ministry spokesman, Robin Middel, said the commandos seized and destroyed seven AK-47 assault rifles and a rocket launcher. Mr Middel said the suspects had to be freed.

“There exists no legal framework in NATO for arrests to be carried out,” he said.

Telegraph, London; Agence France-Presse