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SCMP Reporter

Officials fear the rapidly extending range of Somali pirates could soon see them approaching the headwaters of the Malacca Strait  - one of East Asia's most important shipping choke points. 
 A senior regional anti-piracy official told a conference in Singapore that he was alarmed to see a string of Somali attacks off the Indian coast in recent months.
 'We are very concerned about this,' said Nicholas Teo,  who heads the Singapore-based information sharing centre under the Regional Co-operation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia  programme.
 'We don't want them approaching the Malacca Strait ... and we are working closely with Indian authorities to monitor the situation.'
Some 10 pirate attacks or attempted attacks were logged off India in the last two months as Somali gangs increasingly use hijacked vessels as mother ships from which to launch attacks.
Once limited to vital Asia-Europe shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden and around the Horn of Africa, the pirates are now routinely travelling across the Arabian Sea to within 300 nautical miles  off India, reacting as ship captains ply new routes.
Sri Lankan authorities, meanwhile, recently reported a pirate skiff 100 nautical miles off its coast.
 Teo's comments to the Marseq Combating Piracy Asia  conference this week come amid rising fear and frustration in both shipping and naval communities.
Both South Korean and Malaysian special forces units staged rare raids on captured ships last Friday to seize pirates while a senior UN envoy has demanded a fresh international push to create pirate courts in East Africa. Countries have generally been wary of detaining pirates because of legal problems associated with the complexity of modern shipping.
US Central Command naval chief Vice Admiral Mark Fox yesterday called for tougher anti-terrorist tactics to be used against pirates. Such action is thought to include tougher enforcement of the pirates' money trail and wider use of drones and other weapons.
Captured ships are now being held for longer periods - an average of about six months - as pirates hold out for ever higher ransoms, which have increased to average more than US$7 million. Some 34 ships and an estimated 750 crew are being held in pirate lairs on the lawless coast of Somalia, a failed state - some held since last March.
And while ships increase defensive measures - including the wider use of private armed guards - and prove more effective in thwarting attacks, pirates are simply staging more attacks to keep up their returns.
Captain Chris Chambers,  the US naval chief of staff of a 25-nation Combined Maritime Forces  flotilla that patrols the Horn of Africa, said he was constantly struck by the innovation and organisation of the pirates.
When asked whether the Malacca Strait could prove a fresh target, he said he did not want to speculate on just how far the pirates could roam.
 'Clearly we've all been struck by their incredible range and ability to innovate ... but I'm hoping that somehow logistics will prove their Achilles heel,' he said.
 'They've got the mother ships out there but surely refuelling and so on will prove a problem over time.'
Chambers also issued a blunt message to the private sector conference: 'Shipping has got to protect itself because the militaries cannot be everywhere. 
'We don't have that many ships and we are talking about a huge stretch of ocean,' he said.
Arthur Bowring, Hong Kong Shipowners' Association managing director, said that while he believed the Somali pirates would find the approaches to the Malacca Strait too far, 'there is a sense that something is about to give'. 
'The numbers and the costs are so extreme now, surely this can't go on,' he said.
 'Many of our members were pleased to see the South Koreans and Malaysians take action ... no one  wants to see violence, or an escalation from the pirates, but there is a lot of frustration out there.
 'It may well serve to concentrate minds that fresh solutions have got to be found.'
 The widening use of armed guards on ships - until recently a move that troubled many in the industry - reflected a new determination, he said.
Up until now, many of the 40-odd navies involved in the Indian Ocean anti-piracy effort, including the PLA's historic deployment of three ships, have been reluctant to take the fight to the pirates.
 Like other navies operating out of the main Nato, EU or Combined Maritime Forces flotillas, the PLA runs escorts for ships from China. It also sends special forces to its most vulnerable ships.
While naval forces might open fire to stop attacks, caution is shown in boarding captured vessels or in detaining pirates.
If captured and suspected, they are typically disarmed and their best boats destroyed. They are then given a single boat and just enough food, fuel and water to get them back to shore.
 'We can't just kill them,' Chambers told the conference. 'I know many of you would like us to but they may have hostages. And the lawyers tell us that they are not pirates until they actually commit an act of piracy.'




Fear of Somali pirates heading to Malacca Strait