UNITED NATIONS — The United States sought international authorization Wednesday to hunt Somali pirates on land with the cooperation of Somalia’s weak U.N.-backed government in one of the Bush administration’s last major foreign-policy initiatives.
The U.S. circulated a draft United Nations Security Council resolution proposing that all nations and regional groups cooperating with Somalia’s government in the fight against piracy and armed robbery “may take all necessary measures ashore in Somalia,” including its airspace.
If the U.S. military gets involved, it would mark a dramatic turnabout from the U.S. experience in Somalia in 1992-93 that culminated in a deadly military clash in Mogadishu followed by a humiliating withdrawal of American forces.
Piracy off Somalia has intensified in recent months, with more attacks against a wider range of targets. There was an unsuccessful assault on a cruise ship in the Gulf of Aden, which links the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. In September, pirates seized a Ukrainian freighter loaded with 33 battle tanks, and on Nov. 15 they seized a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million worth of crude.
The U.S. resolution is to be presented Tuesday at a session on Somalia.
It proposes that for a year, nations “may take all necessary measures ashore in Somalia, including in its airspace, to interdict those who are using Somali territory to plan, facilitate or undertake acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea and to otherwise prevent those activities.”
The draft also says Somalia’s government — whose president wrote the U.N. twice this month already seeking help — suffers from a “lack of capacity, domestic legislation, and clarity about how to dispose of pirates after their capture.”
Earlier this month, the Security Council extended authorization for another year for countries to enter Somalia’s territorial waters, with advance notice, and to use “all necessary means” to stop acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea.
