British Warship to Lead Eu Armada Into Gulf of Aden

Britain is to lead an armada of EU warships to the Gulf of Aden next month to tackle the escalating problem of piracy, in a mission expected to last 12 months.

The naval fleet, under UK command, would "disrupt and tackle the scourge of piracy", foreign secretary David Miliband said yesterday on a visit to Beirut. Piracy threatened trade and prosperity, he added.

EU military planners this week drew up a mandate, including rules of engagement for the use of force, for the mission at a meeting at Northwood, Britain's joint operations center in north-west London. Plans for the EU fleet, led by HMS Northumberland and known as Operation Atalanta, are due to be formally agreed early next month, European defence officials said yesterday.

The EU fleet, originally proposed to escort boats carrying food aid to Somalia, should include ships from 10 countries.

Nato military chiefs, meeting in Brussels yesterday, indicated that a coordinated worldwide response was required to deal with piracy amid a plethora of proposals about how to deal with the problem.

Russia yesterday came up with its own proposal - land operations against the bases of Somali pirates.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to Nato, said the view of Russian experts was that naval action alone, even involving the large fleet of a powerful nation, would not be enough to defeat the pirates, given Somalia's geo-strategic position.

"So it is up to Nato, the EU and other major stakeholders to conduct not a sea operation, but in fact a land coastal operation to eradicate the bases of pirates on the ground," he said. "Because we all know ... they have their bases on the ground and of course those actions should be coordinated with Russia," Rogozin said, without making clear whether he envisaged Russian involvement in any operation.

Allied chiefs of staff, meeting in Nato's military committee which devoted most of its time to the conflict in Pakistan, said piracy must be tackled as a long-term problem involving other international organizations, including the UN, a Nato military spokesman said.

Most European countries take the view that piracy is intrinsically linked to the economic and political crisis in Somalia, a failed state. They do not, however, believe that al-Qaida is involved in any of the piracy incidents.

Nato has four ships patrolling the waters off Somalia, with two protecting UN food aid convoys. That mission, Nato's first against pirates, ends next month when the EU operation, called Atalanta, starts.

"The EU presence will be bigger and more designed for the mission," James Appathurai, the chief Nato spokesman, was reported as saying yesterday.

The recent increase in pirate attacks is not only a reflection of Somalia's chronic instability, it is symptomatic of an unstable region, a report for Chatham House, the foreign affairs thinktank, says today.

The report, Yemen: Fear of Failure, says future instability in Somalia had the potential to expand a lawless zone stretching from northern Kenya, through Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, to Saudi Arabia.