Somalia PM fears warships alone won't stop piracy

By David Clarke

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein said naval patrols would not stop piracy and appealed for more help to tackle criminal networks with links beyond the Horn of Africa nation.

The audacious hijack of a supertanker 450 miles off Kenya on Saturday was the latest in a spate of attacks by Somali pirates which has sparked international alarm and threatens to push up the cost of goods and commodities around the world.

Hussein said piracy should be confronted on land and at sea and it would become clearer in the coming months which organisations outside Somalia were involved in hijackings.

"We are very sorry that this piracy problem is not limited only to Somalia but is affecting the whole region, is affecting the world," he told Reuters in an interview.

"The warship operations alone will not be sufficient. Since there is a piracy network, it means an operational network which includes the sea, the land and also outside the country sometimes," he said.

The supertanker was seized despite the deployment of a naval force including NATO and European Union members' ships to protect one of the world's busiest shipping areas. U.S, French and Russian warships are also off Somalia.

"I think this is linked to some other organisations. I don't think that this is only, purely, Somali piracy," Hussein said. "Criminal groups, definitely ... it is an assumption. But of course in the coming months, definitely, the picture will be more clear."

Analysts suspect the Somali pirates are being helped by Yemenis, and possibly Nigerians. They fear the spoils may end up funding international terrorist groups, though there is no hard evidence of this.