U.S. Navy Forms Counter-Piracy Force

January 8, 2009 5:59 p.m. EST

Manama, Bahrain (AHN) - The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet on Thursday announced it has formed a unit that will exclusively battle pirates preying on commercial ships in and near the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's coast.

U.S. Navy (USN) Rear Adm. Terence "Terry" McKnight will command the Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, which will include U.S. naval ships under the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and naval ships from 20 other countries supporting the U.S.-led war against terrorism in the Middle East and Afghanistan, according to the USN's website.

The CTF 151 gives authority to participating naval ships in the region to conduct counter-piracy missions, said USN Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of the Fifth Fleet's Combined Maritime Forces. Coalition naval ships only have the mandate to secure the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, Red Sea and the Indian Ocean against drug smugglers and weapons traffickers.

The creation of the CTF 151, which will be operational in the middle of January, was prompted by the rash of ship hijacking in the Gulf of Aden, where some 20,000 commercial vessels pass each year. Last year, Somali pirates attacked and seized some 100 ships, including an oil supertanker of Saudi Arabia. The ships and crew are released after payment of ransom.