The breakaway enclave of Somaliland on Thursday offered the use of ports on its long coastline for foreign naval patrols against Somali pirates. The Somali sea gangs have attacked dozens of ships in the Gulf of Aden this year, but generally prefer to strike in waters near Yemen instead of close to Somaliland's shore. "Our coast is extremely long, but we have kept our waters free of pirates. We have not had one single incident," said Abdillahi Duale, foreign minister for Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia to declare itself an independent republic in 1991.
The European Union is to begin an air and naval operation off Somalia next week, while a Danish-led task force has eight ships, and the Nato alliance has a further four patrolling the waters off Somalia. Seventeen years of civil conflict in southern and central Somalia has fuelled piracy, which has spilled into Indian Ocean waters as well as the Gulf of Aden, shaking global shipping.
