Royal Navy-led task force tackles resurgent piracy threat in Indian Ocean

While Combined Task Force 151 was unable to prevent the seizure of a tanker last week, the multinational group has intervened in more than two dozen piracy-related incidents over the past six months, as attacks reached a ten-year high.

‘Pirate action groups’ – typically a mothership and a couple of skiff armed with boarding ladders, Ak47s and rocket-propelled grenades – repeatedly attacked merchant shipping between 2005 and around 2013.

A concerted international effort largely strangled pirate activity, but the threat has never entirely gone away – and the root causes (poverty, lawlessness, the collapse of the Somali fishing industry) have never been resolved.

With the military-strategic focus on reopening the Strait of Hormuz since the US-Israeli-Iranian conflict began at the end of February, coupled with the ongoing threat to shipping in the Red Sea from Houthi rebels, pirates have been probing and approaching merchantmen.

As well as responding to 25 piracy-related incidents, the 17 ships and units assigned to the task group over the Royal Navy’s six-month tenure of command – which began just four days before Operation Epic Fury started – have carried out nearly 70 intelligence-gathering patrols to build up a comprehensive picture of potential illegal activity across the region.

“Our collective naval presence, alongside the European Union’s Operation Atalanta, has made a difference despite the broader tensions in the region; Deterrence works, but the threat has not gone away, and there is still much to do,” said CTF 151’s outgoing Commanding Officer Captain Jase Eacock, the Royal Navy’s second most senior officer in the Middle East region.

“It has been both an honour and a privilege to command Combined Task Force 151 on behalf of the United Kingdom.”

In addition to Royal Navy personnel, Capt Eacock has drawn upon experts from seven other nations to choreograph the task force’s activities from Bahrain.

CTF 151 is responsible for more than three million square miles of ocean, with particular emphasis on the Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa.

It’s one of five naval groups, each with a specific mission such as mine warfare, or counter-terrorism, operating under the banner of the Combined Maritime Forces, the coalition of 47 nations committed to security at sea in the Middle East.