US navy would go after pirates if they could be tried

The US Navy would go after pirates off Somalia if the international community came up with a process for holding and trying them as criminals, the commander of the US Fifth Fleet said on Friday.

"We would follow the same manner we use down in the Gulf of Mexico in our counter-drug efforts. It's a matter of surveillance, focused surveillance and rapid action," said Vice Admiral Bill Gortney.

But without an internationally recognised legal process for trying pirates, navies have had little choice but to release those captured, Gortney told reporters in Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.

At least 17 ships are now held by Somali pirates, including an arms-laden Ukrainian cargo vessel and a Saudi-owned super-tanker carrying two million barrels of crude oil.

US and other navies have appeared helpless in the face of a wave of seizures of ships and hostages on the high seas by Somali pirates who have then ransomed them off.

It has not been for lack of authority to act, Gortney acknowledged, noting that the UN Security Council has extended a resolution allowing navies to take action against piracy off Somalia.

"I don't need any authorities for offensive actions against the pirates. I have all I ned," he said.

"If I see a piracy event, I can engage, I can pursue, as long as I maintain positive identification on the vessel that is doing the piracy, and I can engage with lethal fire," he said.

"The problem is once I take them, and they are alive, I don't have any place to take them and hold them accountable for their action."

Since the surge in piracy in August, warships have disrupted more than 50 pirate attacks and destroyed their paraphranalia, he said.

"We've thrown over a lot of AK-47s (automatic assault rifles) and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and sunk a lot of skiffs out there," he said.

But in most instances those captured have later been released because there are no authorities in Somalia to take custody of them and put them on trial.

Gortney rejected direct attacks on pirate camps in Somalia as a solution because of the risk of killing innocent civilians or causing other collateral damage.

"I see people trying to look for an easy military solution to a problem that demands a non-kinetic solution," he said.

"If you are going to do kinetic strikes into the pirate camps the positive ID and the collateral damage cannot be overestimated. It's very difficult. They are irregulars, they don't wear uniforms," he said.

Gortney said he sees "some movement" internationally on tackling the adjudication issue internationally, and more countries are sending ships to patrol the sea lanes off Somalia.

In addition, some shipping companies have begun posting security detachments on their vessels and taken other defensive measures, which the admiral said was another key to thwarting piracy.