China joins war on Somali pirates

China plans to send three warships to join Iran and the European Union in large-scale anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Sunday that two navy destroyers and a support vessel are slated to depart for the waters offshore Somalia to join the international fight against pirates attacking vessels in the Gulf of Aden. 

"Their major task is to protect the safety of Chinese ships and crew on board as well as ships carrying humanitarian relief material for the international organizations, such as the United Nations' World Food Program," Liu said. 

A UN resolution on Dec. 16, gave the green light to governments to pursue the armed bandits into inland Somalia in the wake of increased pirate attacks along Somalia's Indian Ocean coast, as well as in the Gulf of Aden. 

Chinese plans to join the fight comes only one day after an Iranian warship sailed off to join vessels from the EU, US, India, Russia, Malaysia and others to battle piracy and create a defensive front in the key shipping-lanes. 

The dispatch comes after Somali raiders hijacked the Iranian-chartered cargo ship, Delight, off the coast of Yemen in November. The Hong Kong-registered ship with 25 crew aboard was loaded with 36,000 tons of wheat bound for the Islamic Republic. 

In an earlier move on August 21, some 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades attacked Iran's Diyanat, shortly after the merchant ship passed the Horn of Africa. 

The Gulf of Aden --which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea-is the quickest transit point for more than 20,000 ships going from Asia to Europe and the Americas every year. 

According to the International Maritime Bureau, pirates have attacked almost 100 vessels in the waters leading to and from the Suez Canal this year, and earned tens of millions of dollars in ransom. 

In a report published on Dec. 15, the Time reasoned that the West's age-old policy of marginalizing Somalia's endemic poverty is the main reason behind the explosion of piracy off Somalia's coast. 

"We haven't been as involved in Somalia as we should have been …This is the consequence," the report quoted Britain's Defense Secretary John Hutton as saying.