Iran Sends Warship to Fight Somali Pirates
| Mon Dec. 22, 2008 8:25 AM PST
Last month, after pirates hijacked an Iranian ship off the coast of Somalia, I speculated on the prospect that Tehran might choose to join the Western-led naval flotilla now patrolling the Gulf of Aden. By signing on to effort, low-level cooperation between US and Iranian ships would be virtually unavoidable, several experts told me, potentially opening the door to a wider detente between the two nations. Well, this morning the BBC reports that the decision has been made:
Iran has sent a warship to the Gulf of Aden to protect its merchant shipping from attacks by Somali pirates, Iranian state media has reported...
Iranian officials said their ships would be prepared to use force against the pirates if necessary.
"After travelling more than 4,000 maritime miles an Iranian warship entered the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian ships against pirates," said the radio report, but gave no further details.
An unnamed official said the gulf was an international area and that Iran's armed forces would "carry out any decision made by their superiors".
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Comments
Submitted by Eric Ferguson (not verified) on Mon Dec. 22, 2008 10:03 AM PST.
THousands of innocent people have been killed in a civil war, and Somalia is being taken over by religious fundamentalists who think stoning the victim is the right response to rape, and and no one who can do anything seems to care much. However, the US, EU, China, India, and now Iran are sending ships to fight pirates because they interfered with shipping. Killing people is one thing, but now someone's going after our MONEY!. Bush is rallying the UN to go after pirates, and governments look ready to go. Does it even occur to anyone that the pirates might be the only people organized enough to fend off the Islamists? Ship ransoms are cheap compared to what an fundamentalist regime could cost.
Eric, you are right to be concerned about religious fundamentalists in power. Look at Israel, the ultra Orthodox branch runs that country. The ultra Orthodox do not believe that the goys are even human. But we still send Israel over $5 billion of taxpayer money every year.
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