High-tech gear helped S. Korea raid on pirates

By Jung Ha-Won (AFP) – 22 hours ago

SEOUL — High-tech equipment and carefully planned tactics helped Seoul's navy rescue a South Korean ship and its crew from Somali pirates, military officials said Monday.

Navy commandos on Friday stormed the Samho Jewelry, a 11,500-ton freighter hijacked on January 15 in the Arabian Sea, and rescued all 21 crew members -- eight South Koreans, two Indonesians and 11 from Myanmar.

Eight pirates were killed and five seized, with no casualties among the troops sent from the Choi Young destroyer that was pursuing the pirates.

When 15 navy commandos climbed aboard the freighter in the pre-dawn mission, military officials in South Korea monitored their every move via a remote camera system installed on each commando's helmet and gun, the navy said.

"With the images transmitted from the system, military officials in Seoul and navy command centres elsewhere in the country could watch real-time what was going on in the ship," a navy spokesman told AFP.

The navy prevented the pirates from communicating with their mother ship by jamming the airwaves and radar, JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported.

The jamming also made pirates unable to detect a helicopter and troops in high-speed boats approaching the ship, it quoted a Seoul military official as saying.

Defence officials declined to confirm the jamming but a defence ministry spokesman called the raid "a victory based on high technology".

To help the commandos navigate the seized ship, the military in South Korea took photos of a similar vessel and transmitted the images to the Choi Young destroyer, the defence ministry spokesman said.

The destroyer and helicopter had previously staged several fake attacks to "exhaust the pirates and make them unable to anticipate a real attack", said Cho Young-Joo, commander of the Choi Young.

The US military deployed a P-3C reconnaissance aircraft, which helped the South Koreans to figure out the location of each pirate on board.

None of the hijacked crew were hurt apart from the skipper, who suffered a gunshot wound to his stomach from a pirate's bullet. His condition is not life-threatening.

The rescue was seen as a major morale boost for the South's military, which faced strong domestic criticism for a perceived weak response to North Korea's shelling of a border island last November.

President Lee Myung-Bak, who authorised the raid, also came in for praise from the public and even from a leading member of the opposition.

Defence Minister Kim Kwan-Jin said Monday that South Korea would consider bringing the five captured pirates to the country for prosecution.

"They will be put on trial" if they arrive in South Korea, he told reporters.

The final decision will be made as early as Thursday when the freed ship arrives in the Omani port of Muscat, Yonhap news agency said, adding that African countries refuse to try alleged Somali pirates in their own courts.

In a similar operation, Malaysian naval commandos late last week rescued 23 crew and captured seven Somali pirates to free a hijacked oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden.