Saturday, December 13, 2008
His comments come days after the U.S. delegation at the United Nations circulated a draft resolution that would give countries the right to pursue pirates on land as well as at sea.
"With the level of information we have at the moment, we're not in a position to do that kind of land-based operation," Gates told a regional security conference in Bahrain. "Our first need is intelligence, (to know) who is behind it."
Referring to media reports that "two to three clans or extended families" were behind the pirate attacks on ships off the Somali coast, Gates said: "If we can identify who those clans are then we can operate on land under the auspices of the United Nations and seek out ways to minimise collateral damage."
Scores of attacks in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean in recent months have pushed up insurance costs, earned Somali pirates tens of millions of dollars in ransom and prompted foreign navies to rush to protect merchant shipping.
On Friday, Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, who commands the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and oversees a coalition of navies fighting piracy off Somalia, also expressed concern about the difficulty in identifying the pirates.
He said firms should use armed security guards much more to protect their vessels. (Reporting by Frederik Richter; editing by Elizabeth Piper).
Source: Reuters, Dec 13, 2008