5th Fleet Focus: More Incidents You Don't Hear About

We are observing a pattern of press reporting worldwide of incidents that have been absent in the media in the past from the 5th Fleet AOR. We have recognized for a long time that news reporting of events didn't match up with Mariner reports from the region, but chalked the lack of news reporting up to the presence of Admiral Fallon, who was very good at controlling information from the sea in his AOR.

Fallon is gone and the news is getting out. We will attempt to highlight some of the more interesting English language media reporting, and may attempt to translate some of the more interesting foreign reporting as well. The Guardian took its turn today, with stories from the region from the day the Japanese Super Tanker was attacked. The article is written from the perspective of Johan Lillkung and his ship log. John is captain of Dolphin, a 27-metre private yacht in the Red Sea that day. In his captain's log he describes several recent attacks on boats, including his own. This is an excellent article.

It started 20.35 (local time) on 20 April with a Mayday call on the radio. Faisal Mustafa, a small wooden cargo ship, was en route from the Red Sea to India. Their position was only four nautical miles off our starboard side. We saw four dinghy type speedboats quickly approach the ship. The last radio transmission, from the captain, was 'Merciful God, can somebody help us, pirates are boarding. Merciful God, help us please!'

A fantastic job of reporting here, many more incidents you haven't heard and details of those incidents in this story. Read it all. Same story is being covered here as well, including some commentary similar to ours of a shift in media attention, or as we see it, a lack of secrecy at the same level as in the past regarding activity at sea. BTW, sounds like that pirate incident may have generated an environmental problem, the report indicates the Takayama was spilling oil. I had previously read the tanker was empty. Perhaps not?