Ireland to help Somalis fight pirates

IRELAND is to take part in training Somali security forces to help combat the pirates that have been terrorising vessels along the African coast and in some cases kidnapping and murdering their crew.

Operation Atalanta, put together by EU nations, has been successful in reducing the number of attacks, but EU defence ministers decided more needed to be done to tackle the root causes.

Part of this is training Somali military to deal with the threat as part of the help to the transitional government.