The Gulf of Aden is bristling with naval firepower and marine commandos but is there a practical land option for dealing with the pirates in the towns where they live on the coast of Somalia?

Rather than attempting to pick them off boatload by boatload in international waters when they emerge to hijack a vessel, Western military organisations must look to the alternatives, including launching a beach assault and targeting pirates as they park their fancy 4x4s outside their homes.

There is a UN mandate for such action: Resolution 1851, passed last December, authorises states to “take all necessary measures that are appropriate in Somalia” to suppress acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea.

The focus of any land assault would be on two ports — Eyl and Harardhere — where the pirates have hijacked ships at anchor and where hostages are taken while ransom negotiations get under way. But it is one thing to have the capability to carry out an amphibious landing, quite another to achieve the objective of ridding Somalia of every pirate. “The trouble is, as soon as you have arrested or otherwise removed suspected pirates, another lot will come along because the rewards are just too tempting,” a senior British military source said.

Key to any military action would be intelligence, and since Somalia is a lawless ungoverned nation, the potential for human-source information would be limited. Eyl and Harardhere are also more than 200 miles apart. But night raids involving commandos and US Navy Seals targeting a selected number of pirates’ homes in these ports might have a lasting deterrent effect on even the most audacious of the Somali gunmen who are causing such mayhem.

Both America and Britain currently have the military wherewithal to launch a land assault against the pirates. A Royal Navy amphibious task group is moving east of the Suez Canal and the US-led anti-piracy maritime group now in the Gulf of Aden is headed by USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship that has Marines embarked from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

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