Action of 16 September 2008
| Carré d'As IV incident | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of piracy in Somalia, Operation Atalanta | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 France Germany Malaysia
|
Somali pirates | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Nicolas Sarkozy
|
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| Strength | |||||||
|
France 1 La Fayette-class frigate 30 commandos Germany 2 reconnaissance planes |
1 hijacked yacht 7 pirates |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| None | 1 yacht recaptured 1 killed 6 captured |
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French victory:
On September 2, 2008, the French yacht Carré d'As IV and its two crew were captured in the Gulf of Aden by seven armed Somali pirates, who demanded the release of six pirates captured in the April MY Le Ponant raid and over one million dollars in ransom. On September 16, 2008, on the orders of President Nicolas Sarkozy, French special forces raided and recovered the yacht, rescued the two hostages, killed one pirate, and captured the other six. The pirates were flown to France to stand trial for piracy and related offenses; ultimately, five of them were convicted and sentenced to four to eight years in prison, while a sixth was acquitted. The incident marked the second French counter-piracy commando operation of 2008 (after the recovery of the MY Le Ponant), as well as the first-ever French trial of Somali pirates.
From 2003 to 2007, the number of piracy incidents worldwide declined from 452 to 282; however, piracy increased by 100% in Somalia, which suffered from severe poverty and lacked an effective central government since the 1991 ouster of Siad Barre. By 2005, the International Maritime Bureau advised ships to stay 200 nautical miles off the Somalian coast. According to academics J. Ndumbe Anyu and Samuel Moki, "the overwhelming majority of pirates in Somalia come from Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in the northeast of the country... where [Somalia's] poorest of the poor live." By 2008, as Anyu and Moki write, Somalia was the "epicenter of piracy," with 100 ships attacked that year; pirate ransom demands had spiked "from tens of thousands of dollars a few years before to between $500,000 and $3.5 million," since shipowners were willing to pay relatively small amounts to recover much more expensive ships. Pirates extorted about $120 million in ransoms in 2008. Accordingly, insurance premiums for shipping in the Gulf of Aden increased ten times from 2007 to 2008, from $900 to $9,000. The pirates frequently targeted yachts or commercial ships, which are unarmed and may hold valuable cargo. They sometimes targeted ships bearing humanitarian aid, such as the MV Semlow and MV Miltzow in 2005, which were hijacked while delivering food to Somalia under the UN World Food Programme. Despite international naval patrols working to curb piracy, The Telegraph noted that the region remained "the most dangerous in the world for pirate attacks," with 24 attacks between April and June 2008. In addition, 94 mariners were captured in the Gulf of Aden in the first half of the year.
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Wikipedia