Indian commandos recaptured a hijacked cargo ship off the coast of Somalia last week, rescuing 21 crew members.
The Liberian flagged MV Lila Norfolk was sailing 450 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia when it was boarded last Thursday by about a half dozen hijackers. The vessel had a multinational crew of 15 Indians and 6 Fillipinos, who sheltered in the ship’s safe room and reportedly sustained no injuries. The Indian Navy’s Marine Commandos (sometimes called MARCOS) retook the vessel the following morning – the hijackers appear to have fled during the night, after the Indian Navy arrived.
“The decisive thwarting of this attempted hijack is a stellar demonstration of mission deployed efforts [by the Indian Navy] to ensure the security of our oceans and seafarers.” Shambhu Kumaran, India’s envoy to the Philippines, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Somalia has historically been an epicenter of piracy, although anti-piracy missions by the U.S. and other naval powers have led to a steep decline in the number of incidents since the early 2010s.
However, Iranian backed Houthi militants from Yemen have been menacing international shopping from the other side of the Gulf of Aden, in support of Hamas and their ongoing war against Israel. There also appears to be a local spike in Somali piracy – another commercial ship, the MV Reun, was hijacked last December in the first major Somali attack since 2019.
(Horn of Africa by Wikimedia Commons)
Nearly 15% of global maritime trade passes through the Red Sea, and attacks have already sent economic shockwaves across the world in the form of higher shipping costs and supply chain delays that could ripple throughout the system for months.
The international community has condemned the Houthi strikes and several major powers have deployed elements of their navies to escort civilian ships and protect shipping lanes. While the U.S. has taken a prominent role, India has also deployed at least 5 of its own destroyers to the region.
India is highly dependent on international trade – last year they imported 86% of their crude oil – and would be heavily impacted by any interruption of that trade. Vessels crewed by Indian nationals and bound for Indian ports have been struck by missiles since the crisis began.
India has also poured considerable resources into growing and modernizing their navy, largely in response to China’s military build up. India and China are close trading partners and regional rivals with a fraught relation – India has increasingly aligned itself with the United States via military alliances such as “The Quad” (a “joint dialogue” between the US, Japan, Australia and India). Sending its assets into the Red Sea could be an opportunity to flex its military muscle in addition to protecting its maritime interests.
“As a rising great power in its own right, India maintains its desire to play a larger and more proactive role as a responsible security and development partner and provider, not only in the Indian Ocean Region but also the greater Indo-Pacific region,” Geopolitical Analyst Don McLain Gill told USNI News.