Nearly a dozen pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades, machineguns and grappling hooks have been seized in the Gulf of Aden, after being intercepted by a Royal Navy warship.

Two skiffs had been detected by the radar on board HMS Portland, a Type 23 frigate, which was originally designed for anti-submarine warfare.

Suspecting that they were “not innocent fishing vessels”, the frigate, commanded by Commander Tim Henry, steamed closer to the skiffs and saw that both vessels were filled with weaponry and ammunition. The ship’s Lynx helicopter was sent to hover over the skiffs while teams of Royal Marine and navy personnel in rigid inflatable boats sped towards the craft and disarmed the ten men on board. The Lynx was armed with a machinegun and snipers.

“The skiffs were equipped with extra barrels of fuel, grappling hooks and a cache of weapons that included rocket-propelled grenades, machineguns and ammunition,” navy officials said.

Because of the rules of engagement, however, the ten pirates had to be set free. “We can only arrest suspected pirates if we catch them in the act or on the point of launching an attack on a vessel,” a Ministry of Defence official said.

“Clearly, with all the weaponry in the skiffs, there was an intent to commit piracy, but we hadn’t actually caught them in the middle of an attack so we had to release them.”

All the weapons and ammunition were confiscated and the ten men were piled into the larger of the two skiffs, provided with enough fuel to get them to the Somali coast and told to go home. Some of the fuel was then put into the other skiff and set on fire.

“The pirates tend to use the smaller boats to go up against the merchant vessels they are trying to hijack, so we basically removed or destroyed all the piracy paraphernalia,” the MoD official said.

HMS Portland is serving with the Combined Maritime Forces Task Force 151, a multinational naval group that currently consists of ships from the United States, Britain, Turkey, South Korea, Singapore, Denmark and Japan. It was established to conduct counter-piracy operations.

The latest successful action against pirates in the Gulf of Aden took place on Tuesday. Dramatic pictures of the sequence of events that led to the burning of one of the skiffs were released by the MoD yesterday. The Royal Navy frigate had identified and pursued the skiffs in co-ordination with a Spanish maritime patrol aircraft.

“This international collaboration cannot be understated and as more countries join the fight, we will continue to work together to help deter, disrupt and thwart criminal acts of piracy,” said Commodore Tim Lowe, deputy commander of the Combined Maritime Forces.

HMS Portland has been involved recently in several other counterpiracy operations. Commander Henry said that his ship was playing her part in keeping the area safe for international trade.

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