Unidentified Fighter Jets Strike Somali Pirate Base [REPORT]

Unidentified military fighter jets launched an airstrike earlier this week in northern Somalia in a suspected attack on a pirate base, AFP has reported citing a coastguard official and several witnesses.

AFP says the aircraft struck near the north-eastern coastal village of Gumah, which lies some 220 kilometres (140 miles) east of Bossaso, the main port of Somalia’s breakaway Puntland state. Two civilian’s were killed in the attacks.

As gCaptain reported last month, the European Union confirmed its intention to extend its EU Naval Force’s (EUNAVFOR) counter-piracy mission, Operation ATALANTA, to “include Somalia’s coastal territory and internal waters”, indicating the pursuit of pirates by EUNAVFOR for the first time on land, or at least on the beach.

But despite those intentions, a spokesman for Atalanta told AFP that it was “not involved whatsoever” and did not give any comment on who may be behind the strikes.

The number of other nations conducting anti-piracy military operations around the Horn of Africa is nearly too lengthy to mention but include Russia, China, the U.S. and even Iran.