UK warship pays visit to Jeddah

HMS Somerset, one of the UK’s 13 type 23 frigates that are the mainstay of the country’s surface fleet, is paying a courtesy visit to Jeddah in the Kingdom of Suadi Arabia. Captained by Commander Paul Bristowe, the ship is on her way back to the UK after a six-month tour of duty conducting maritime security operations that included cracking down on piracy, smuggling, terrorism, people trafficking and the illegal arms trade, the Saudi daily (Arab News) reported Sunday. On Saturday evening, the commander and crew extended the Royal Navy’s traditional hospitality to invited guests at reception on board the warship in Jeddah Islamic Port. Normally a formal courtesy, this time there was a distinct spring in the step of the officers and crew and a sense of a truly successful mission. During the patrol Somerset had a very significant encounter with Somali pirates and a "whiff of grapeshot" as they went about their sea-lane protection duties. UK Royal Fleet Auxillary Fort Victoria and her commandos in mid-October went to the aid of the crew of the Italian bulk freighter "Montecristo" that had been boarded by pirates. The bulk carrier spent a day and a half in the hands of pirates after being attacked some 300 km off the coast of Somalia. Her crew were able to retreat to the engine room and were freed when RFA Fort Victoria and her commandos arrived on the scene after picking up the Italians’ SOS. Fort Victoria was carrying out NATO’s counter-piracy mission in the Indian Ocean, Operation Ocean Shield, while HMS Somerset was assigned to the Combined Maritime Forces counter-piracy mission, Combined Task Force (CTF) 151. HMS Somerset appeared on the scene after the "mothership," a large dhow, had been located. It was suspected to have been involved in an earlier attack on the Montecristo. In a classic seaborne mission that started with the time honored "shot across the bow," Royal Marines from the Somerset boarded the dhow and confirmed it was being used by the pirates as a base for launching armed raids on merchant shipping. The boarding team found a large cache of boarding ladders, weapons, a second attack skiff and equipment from a previously targeted ship, ample evidence that the vessel was being used as the launch pad for pirate attacks. This was the first attack ordered on a "mothership" and came three months after Maj. Gen. Buster Howes, Britain’s most senior Royal Marine and former head of the EU naval task force in the Gulf, warned a more aggressive stance was needed "to erode the pirates’ sense of impunity." Estimates put the cost of piracy to global business at SR12 billion a year, with 346 cargo vessels attacked and 35 hijacked in 2011 alone. Britain is setting up an intelligence center in the Seychelles to track raiders’ movements in a bid to bring them to book. The use of hijacked vessels as motherships has allowed bands of pirates to strike far into the Indian Ocean by using them to launch fast attack boats to seize unsuspecting ships. (QNA)