AFRICOM And The Pirate Hunt: A Clarification

We have a clarification to make about the item we posted on December 24^th about the newly-released U.S. Defense Department map showing the areas of responsibility for the various regional military commands, including the Africa Command.

In that post, which quoted a report by VOA Pentagon Correspondent Al Pessin, it was stated, “this map indicates that Africa Command will not have responsibility for any of the waters off the continent's north shore on the Mediterranean, its northwestern shore on the Atlantic, and its northeastern shorelines on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It is that last area where pirates have attacked dozens of ships, and still hold hundreds of hostages.”

However we have since received an email from AFRICOM spokesman Vince Crawley who says: “it is incorrect to say U.S. Africa Command ‘will not have responsibility for any of the waters’ in question. In the areas you discussed, Africa Command has responsibility for coastal waters, though not the international waters.”

I won’t speculate at this time on why this distinction is important to the Pentagon. But I asked Vince for clarification on the distinction, given that coastal waters are in fact a country’s territorial or sovereign waters and international waters are in fact the waters in which all ships have free passage. Vince replied: “Coastal waters are sovereign territory. And yes, in the piracy region, Central Command continues to be responsible for international waters.”

The Defense Department map displaying AFRICOM’s area of responsibility can be seen at this link.

A series of Pentagon slides on AFRICOM including the map is at this link.

Despite this clarification, our main point remains true: AFRICOM has no responsibility for anti-piracy operations around Somalia at the present time.