THE COWARDS OF LABAD (ecop-marine)
WHOSE NAVY KILLED FIVE SOMALIS AT THE BEACH OF LABAD ON 24. OCTOBER 2010 ?
Incident Date: Sunday, October 24, 2010 early nightly hours
Location: off Labad (about 30 kilometers from Hobyo at the Central Somali Indian Ocean coast)
Casualties 4 Somali Nationals killed instantly
Wounded: 3 Somali Nationals (one died later)
Small Somali Boat destroyed during the attack
Situation: Not a hostage situation, assumed preparation by Somalis to go out on the sea in their boat.
According to the navies a pirate group had prepared to go hunting and shot first at 2 RHIBs (rigid hull inflatable boats) with unidentified naval commando units from a nearby warship when they came close for inspection. Their chopper was called in and returned fire with heavier arms. The "pirates" were at the beach, one missile (most likely fired as deterrent rather than on target) hit a rock and caused the casualties, according to local observers
The navies said bluntly:
A spokesman for the Combined Maritime Forces says the patrol was shot at
during a routine mission and returned fire. He did not report any casualties.
Investigations by AFP said earlier:
The chopper flew from a military ship off the coastal area and it fired a
missile after the pirates opened fire on it
The missile hit a rock and exploded causing the casualties.
The European Union’s anti-piracy mission on Monday denied that one of its
helicopters was involved in a clash with Somali pirates in which four people
were killed.
"That helicopter does not belong to EU NAVFOR," Lieutenant Colonel Per
Klingvall, spokesman for the EU naval force, told AFP.
During that day the Turkish Navy under Rear Admiral Sinan Ertugrul was at the helm of Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151), the multi-national counter-piracy mission of the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) and Commodore Gregory Sammut of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) held command of Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150).
Requests for clarification were answered by Jeremy Olver, Lieutenant, Royal Naval Reserve, Deputy Media Operations Officer, United Kingdom Maritime Component Command (UKMCC), Bahrain.as Assistant Public Affairs Officer, Combined Maritime Forces by stating bluntly: "Combined Maritime Forces’ rules of engagement are established in accordance with international law. As such, units and personnel attached to Combined Maritime Forces are permitted to act in self defence. We do not comment on specific incidents."
Since January 2005, the UK’s Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) has given the public a general right of access to all types of “recorded” information held by public authorities – not only government departments, local authorities and other public bodies, but also schools, colleges and universities, and private entities wholly or largely owned by a ‘public authority’. Naval Reservist Olver might not know this. But who controls him?
Thereby it must be noted that the CMF is a non-legal entity – a nobody to be precise – a naval club without any rights per se, which only can make funny statements concerning its existence, like:
"Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) is an [sic!] multi-national naval partnership, which exists to promote security, stability and prosperity [prosperity on water???] across 2.5 million square miles of international waters in the Middle East, which encompass some of the world’s most important shipping lanes." – see: http://combinedmaritimeforces.com/about/
– BUT LET LOOSE, THEY BECOME DEADLY KILLER VIRUSES !
They must believe that they can even "walk on water".
Many more details have transpired since the incident took place and we guess that it must have been an action carried out by U.S.American naval forces on USS OSCAR AUSTIN, which was sailing there at that time under national (USA) control.
The camouflaging "let’s-change-the-hat"-game is common among the navies who sail under EU or NATO if kudos are believed to be dished out, but stick to their own national flag and secrecy if something goes wrong.
How about coming out with a clear voice, commander of USS OSCAR AUSTIN ? We are sure Commanding Officer CDR Charlos Washington, Executive Officer CDR Brian Diebold or Command Master Chief CMDCM (SW/AW) James Williams can bring some light to the saga.
Naval oversight is obviously lacking in the U.S.American Navy, which also became clear in the disastrously wrong "rescue-mission" for SY QUEST, which resulted in the death of the four American hostages and four of the hostage takers, while the case was handled by officers on USS STERETT, whose Commanding Officer, Commander Rich McDaniel, had irresponsibly already earlier let a large oil-tanker drift as extremely dangerous ghost ship in the Indian Ocean for two month. Commander had just lifted the crew of the ailing ship and given them a ride to Muscat in Oman, but not secured the vessel – creating an unprecedented navigational hazard. USS STERETT ws now recalled to return to her home port.
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ECOTERRA Intl. is an international nature protection and human rights organization, whose Africa offices in Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania also monitor the marine and maritime situation along the East African Indian Ocean coasts as well as the Gulf of Aden. ECOTERRA is working in Somalia since 1986 and does focus in its work against piracy mainly on coastal development, marine protection and pacification. ECOP-marine (www.ecop.info) is an ECOTERRA group committed to fight against all forms of crime on the waters. Both stand firm against illegal fishing as well as against marine overexploitation and pollution.
ECOTERRA Intl. and ECOP-marine serve concerning the counter-piracy issues as advocacy groups in their capacity as human rights, marine and maritime monitors as well as in co-operation with numerous other organizations, groups and individuals as information clearing-house. In difficult cases we have successfully served as mediators.
For further details and regional information see the archive at www.australia.to and news on www.international.to and see the situation map of the PIRACY COASTS OF SOMALIA (2011).
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