From left to right: the Korean frigate Wang Geon (Combined Task Force 151), the FS Marne (Atalanta) and the Dutch frigate Evertsen (Ocean Shield – NATO)
(Reuters)NATO has ended its Indian Ocean counter-piracy mission after a sharp fall in attacks, the alliance said on Wednesday, as it shifts resources to deterring Russia in the Black Sea and people smugglers in the Mediterranean.
All ships and patrol aircraft have now left the area off the Horn of Africa, where they patrolled since 2009, as part of a broader international effort to crack down on Somali-based pirates who had caused havoc with world shipping.
NATO says its “Ocean Shield” operation, as well as European Union and other counter-piracy missions, have significantly reduced attacks, with no ships captured off Somalia since May 2012, down from more than 30 ships at the peak in 2010-11.
After more than a decade of NATO-led operations far beyond its borders, the U.S.-led military alliance is shifting to defend its territory to deter Russia in the east, following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
“The global security environment has changed dramatically in the last few years and NATO navies have adapted with it,” NATO spokesman Dylan White said in a statement. “NATO has increased maritime patrols in the Baltic and Black Seas. We are also working to help counter human smuggling in the Mediterranean.”
Earlier this month, NATO broadened its operations in the Mediterranean to help the European Union stop criminals trafficking refugees from North Africa.
(Reporting by Robin Emmott)
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After months of delay, the Pentagon will select as soon as this week the defense company to design and build the Navy's next stealth fighter, a U.S. official and two people familiar with the decision said, it will be a multibillion-dollar effort for a jet seen as central to U.S. efforts to counter China.
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford arrived in Norway’s capital, wrapping up a month-long joint exercise with NATO in the Norwegian and Barents Sea in a show of strength. The drills in the Sub-Arctic and Arctic region serve to reinforce NATO’s High North posture. A flotilla of naval vessels, including Norwegian frigate HNoMS Thor Heyerdahl, escorted the aircraft carrier into Oslo fjord.
U.S. naval forces continue to step up their engagement in the Arctic. While the Coast Guard now has two icebreakers operating in the Bering Sea simultaneously for the first time in more than a decade, the U.S. Navy together with Norwegian allied forces dispatched a four-vessel flotilla to the North Cape at the very top of Norway.
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