EU authorises warships to hit Somali pirate lairs
Atlanta: The European Union authorised its navies to strike Somali pirate equipment on land as foreign ministers on Friday beefed up the anti-piracy mission and extended it until December 2014. The EU's Operation Atalanta has deployed between five and 10 warships off the Somali coast since 2008 to escort humanitarian aid shipments and thwart pirate raids on commercial vessels using vital shipping lanes. Foreign ministers meeting in Brussels agreed to extend "the force's area of operations to include Somali coastal territory as well as its territorial and internal waters," said an EU statement. The new mandate will allow warships or helicopters to fire at fuel barrels, boats, trucks or other equipment stowed away on beaches, an EU official said on condition of anonymity. "Piracy has caused so much misery to the Somali people and to the crews of ships transiting the area and it is right that we continue to move forward in our efforts,"