For the 3rd time this week, a Canadian warship has fought off pirates

[Stan]

http://www.cknw.com/News/National/Article.aspx?id=101421

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

TORONTO - For the third time in a week the crew of the Canadian Navy's HMCS Winnipeg has helped ward off a suspected pirate attack off the Gulf of Aden.

Commander Craig Baines tells CTV NewsNet that the Winnipeg dispatched its Sea King helicopter Friday night after a civilian vessel reported four people in a skiff were firing weapons at it.

Once the suspected pirate vessel was located, Baines says a boarding team was sent over. However, as they approached the skiff in the dark the crew saw a number of items being thrown overboard, possibly weapons.

On Wednesday, the Canadian warship was involved in a similar incident involving a skiff with four men firing at a civilian vessel, and last Saturday, its Sea King crew warded off another potential attack.

The Winnipeg is currently participating in a NATO led counter-piracy mission known as Operation Allied Protector.

Piracy along the anarchic and impoverished Somali coast, the longest in Africa, has risen in recent years. Somali pirates have been seizing ships with many hostages and anchoring it near shore, where they have quickly escaped to land and begun negotiations for multimillion-dollar ransoms.