Piracy at Sea

Summary: Pirate attacks were defined as those carried out on the high seas. These were areas outside of territorial waters against commercial shipping. Motives were for financial gain as opposed to politically inspired terrorist attacks. These incidents reached a record number in 2010. This was the fourth consecutive year of increases, reflecting a pattern that was dominant throughout the early 2000s, especially off the Horn of Africa. The Piracy Reporting Center of the International Maritime Bureau reported that pirates attacked 445 ships in 2010, taking 1,181 hostages and killing eight people. In 2009, the bureau reported that 420 ships were assaulted. Pirates from Somalia operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean accounted for most of the incidents. Between 2016 and 2022, incidences of piracy attacks, particularly off the coast of Somalia, fell drastically in response to multinational coalitions of antipiracy measures. In the 2020s, however, piracy increased on the western coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea. Piracy incidences were also rising in Southeast Asian waters, especially the Singapore Straits.

Piracy at sea - defined as attacks on ships sailing outside territorial waters - reached a record high in 2010, with attacks on 445 ships, a ten percent rise over 2009, 1,181 hostages from fifty-three ships taken for ransom, and eight people killed in pirate attacks, according to figures collected by the Piracy Reporting Center of the International Maritime Bureau. Though these numbers had dropped by the 2020s, 115 incidents were reported in 2022, and 132 were reported in 2021.

Pirates operating from Somalia accounted for 92 percent of ship hijackings in 2010. Somali pirates operated in the Gulf of Aden (the waters between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, south of the Red Sea, a busy shipping lane leading to and from the Suez Canal) and the Indian Ocean, and for the first time, hijacked a ship in the Red Sea. Somali pirates increased their range of operations in the Indian Ocean, even using hijacked ships to intercept other ships sailing far from Somali ports. 

Other hot spots of pirate attacks in 2010 included waters off Indonesia and Nigeria, according to the bureau. 

In 2010, Somali piracy appeared to take on a political aspect; in some cases, ransom collected to free hijacked ships and crews was used to fund land-based militias on both sides of Somalia's long-running civil war. Whereas the motive of Somali pirates, like others, had been viewed as purely financial, in 2010, Somali pirate gangs were solicited by both the government and the Shabab Islamist guerrilla organizations for help. With tens of millions of dollars flowing into their coffers from ransoms paid for seized ships and crews, pirate gangs became a potentially large source of funding for weapons. Pirate gangs controlled coastal towns, where representatives of state governments, the central government, and Shabab were reported to have gone to solicit help and to form alliances with pirate militias armed with anti-aircraft guns and machine guns mounted on heavy trucks. In at least some cases, regional state governments were reported to have turned to pirates to provide military help in resisting Shabab's particularly strict version of Sharia (Islamic law). 

Foreign navies, including ships from the United States, China, India, and several European nations, in 2008 increased patrols in the waters off Somalia. Those efforts were credited with reducing attacks in the Gulf of Aden (the waters just south of the Red Sea between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula) by half in 2010, although the Somali pirates responded by increasing their range of operations in the Indian Ocean. In July 2010, Somali pirates hijacked a tanker in the Red Sea, the first recorded attack in those waters. 

Most ship hijackings off Somalia ended peacefully with ransoms paid for the ships and crew. An exception was the first hijacking of an American flag vessel in April 2009. The ship's crew managed to take back the ship, but its captain was taken hostage until sharpshooters from a US Navy destroyer killed three of four pirates holding the captain aboard a hijacked covered lifeboat. In another instance, also in April 2009, French commandos stormed a private yacht held hostage in the Gulf of Aden, killing two pirates and one hostage. 

The second-most active area of modern piracy in the early 2000s were the waters off Nigeria, especially involving ships transporting oil. 

A third hot spot for piracy during this time period was near Indonesia and Malaysia, especially the Malacca Straights. 

By definition, piracy involves attacks carried out for financial gain. Although the term piracy may evoke images of eighteenth-century sailing ships and buccaneers wearing eye patches, the contemporary definition is more prosaic: "(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed (i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft; (ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State; (b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft; (c) any act inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in sub-paragraph (a) or (b)". -1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. 

Contemporary pirates usually follow one of several distinct methods. In many cases, thieves piloting speedboats board freighters, usually at night, rob the ship of readily available valuables and disappear quickly. In a smaller number of cases, pirates may take the crew hostage for a longer time in order to conduct a more elaborate theft. In the most extreme cases, the crew is either put overboard or murdered, and the ship is stolen, sometimes to reappear under a different name and registration. Rarely, pirates may take a ship hostage in order to achieve a political end (e.g., the release of political prisoners); such actions fall outside the technical definition of "piracy." 

All categories of ships are subject to pirate attacks, ranging from oil supertankers and conventional freighters to luxury yachts and cruise vessels. The pirates themselves range from local seamen, organized crime gangs, and even rogue military units. 

In the early part of the twenty-first century, international shipping experienced a rise in incidents of piracy; this increase was contemporaneous with a rise in incidents of land-based "terrorism" as well as the virtual collapse of some governments, notably in Somalia, where many pirates were based in the breakaway region of Puntland. Some news reports equated acts of piracy with terrorism, although most observers agreed that the majority of piracy attacks were motivated by money rather than politics. The distinction between simple theft and terrorism was further muddied by the qualification that piracy occurred "outside the jurisdiction of any state," i.e., outside the twelve-mile territorial limit. There was also a significant number of attacks on ships inside these twelve-mile limits that may or may not have been reported as piracy. 

Despite the clear distinction between piracy (attacks for financial gain) and terrorist attacks on ships, some governments (and some victims of piracy) may be motivated to obscure the difference and to see more acts of piracy classified as terrorism. One reason is that commercial theft, while serious to the victims, usually does not result in an enthusiastic response by governments to take drastic action to end it, whereas terrorism has become a powerful political motivator. Another complicating factor lies in the twelve-mile limit. Some of the most dangerous waters for international shipping lie within twelve-mile limits; this is particularly the case in the Straights of Malacca separating Malaysia and Indonesia, two countries that jealously guard their offshore territorial jurisdiction. A popular perception that "terrorists" are operating in these waters could lead to greater international pressure for effective countermeasures, even at the expense of unique national sovereignty. 

Dangerous Waters. Reports from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) record piracy incident totals; however, some expert observers believe pirate attacks are under-reported (possibly because ship captains do not wish their competence questioned, ship owners do not want to risk higher insurance rates or a disruption in sailing schedules, or states in whose waters attacks occur do not want to be embarrassed) and that the actual number of attacks may be twice as many as officially reported. In 2021, 132 incidences of piracy were recorded globally, though the incidences off the coast of Somalia had fallen sharply. In 2022, 115 global incidences of piracy were recorded. 

Antipiracy Measures. In 2008, the international community showed signs of a willingness to cooperate towards the eradication of piracy. In the Malacca Straits, crucial to the delivery of oil to both Japan and China, a joint effort by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore greatly reduced pirate attacks by the mid-2010s. France launched an international antipiracy initiative in the Gulf of Aden and lobbied the UN Security Council to adopt an international antipiracy law or even a UN-sponsored international naval force charged with keeping the oceans pirate-free. 

On June 2, 2008, the Security Council adopted a resolution authorizing measures to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia after the Somali government authorized some countries to enter its territorial waters and use "all necessary means" to suppress piracy. 

An example of the effectiveness of international efforts to combat piracy, especially off the coast of East Africa, was seen in the Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150), a multinational coalition of forces that patrol the waters off the Horn of Africa and into the Indian Ocean in what is referred to as Maritime Security Operations. Forces such as CTF-150 allowed for the incidences of piracy to drop dramatically in this area by the 2020s. Still, piracy is rising elsewhere in the world. One area that has seen a rise in piracy is the western coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, where 130 incidences of piracy took place in 2020. These waters present valuable trade routes just as the eastern waters did before them. Elsewhere, the Singapore Strait has seen a rise in piracy in the 2020s, as over two-thirds of the incidences of piracy in Asia occur in those waters.

Piracy in the 2020s. In the 2020s, piracy struck much closer to home for Americans. In April 2020, an Italian-flagged supply ship off the coast of Mexico was taken over by an eight-person crew of armed attackers. These attacks were typically directed against ships that were part of the Mexican oil industry. In June 2020, this prompted the US government to issue a piracy warning for American ships transiting the Bay of Campeche, located off the Yucatan peninsula. Other areas in Latin America that reported acts of piracy included off the anchorages of Callao in Peru, Guayaquil in Ecuador, and Port Aux Prince in Haiti.

Concerted efforts by international governments and navies resulted in incidents of piracy pummeling in 2021. For example, piracy was reported to have all but ceased in the Indian Ocean region. Piracy was reduced to localized areas, for example, in the Singapore Straits. 

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