Pirates pick wrong ship to mess with in Indian Ocean

CORRECTION: Thursday's attack was not the first modern-day pirate attack on a U.S. warship. An earlier version of this story contained an error.

Pirate attacks don't get much more brazen than this.

Commercial shippers operating off the eastern coast of Africa have been plagued for years by Somali pirates who seize their vessels and crews and hold them for ransom.

But now, nautical marauders in the lawless region appear to have taken on a mightier target: a heavily armed U.S. warship.

Just after midnight Thursday, the Norfolk-based guided missile frigate Nicholas reported taking small-arms fire from a suspected pirate skiff west of the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.

The Nicholas returned fire and pursued the skiff until it stopped. Sailors boarded the vessel, detained three crew members and found ammunition and multiple cans of fuel, the Navy said.

After taking the suspected pirates on board, the Nicholas sank the disabled skiff and confiscated a suspected mother ship in nearby waters, capturing two more suspected pirates.

"We're exploring our next steps as far as how to legally process the individuals and what we're going to do next with the mother ship," said Lt. Patrick Foughty, a spokesman for the Navy's 6th Fleet in Naples, Italy.

Foughty wouldn't speculate on whether the nighttime attack might have been a case of mistaken identity. If so, it was quite a mistake - unlike a cargo vessel, the Nicholas carries six Mark 46 torpedoes as well as a 3-inch gun capable of firing 80 rounds per minute.

In August, Somali pirates aboard a seized Taiwanese-flagged commercial ship fired what appeared to be a large-caliber weapon at a Navy helicopter flying off the San Diego-based guided missile cruiser Chancellorsville. The copter was not hit.

The attack on the Nicholas is a sign that Somali pirates are widening their area of operations. Most pirate activity has occurred farther north, in the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet's area of responsibility.

Increased attention by naval forces off the Somali coast appears to be driving pirates farther from their home waters in search of targets, Foughty said.

Pirate attacks in the 5th Fleet's area of operations increased by nearly two-thirds from 2008 to 2009, according to Navy statistics, though their rate of success fell by one-third.

There have been 36 attacks so far this year. Pirates are holding 162 merchant mariners hostage aboard nine ships.

The Nicholas, with a crew of about 200 sailors, left Norfolk in December for a six-month deployment. It has been participating in Africa Partnership Station, a maritime security program that provides training for local security forces.

At a news conference last month in Mombasa, Kenya, naval officers from the United States and several African nations said there is little hope of extinguishing piracy in the region as long as there is no functioning government in war-torn Somalia.

Because there is no central authority to enforce fishing laws off the coast, many Somali fishermen have taken the law into their own hands. Large ransoms from captured vessels have allowed pirates to acquire increasingly lethal and sophisticated weapons, as well as large mother ships capable of operating farther from the coast.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com