MOMBASA, Kenya — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced new efforts Wednesday to freeze pirate booty, part of a series of diplomatic steps by the Obama administration to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia.
Clinton said the administration would call for immediate meetings of an international counter-piracy task force to expand current naval coordination against pirates. The administration also will send an envoy to a Somali donors conference scheduled for next week in Brussels, and will attempt to organize meetings with officials of Somali's transitional government as well as regional leaders in Somali's semiautonomous Puntland.Clinton acknowledged that the diplomatic steps she outlined will not necessarily address piracy's root causes — endemic instability and insecurity on the ground in Somalia. But she said the moves were critical given the rising number of ship hijackings."You've got to put out the fire before you can rebuild the house," she told reporters at the State Department. "And, right now, we have a fire raging."The steps come as French forces raided a pirate supply ship and detained 11 brigands off the coast of Kenya on Wednesday and as pirate attacks and counterattacks racheted up tensions in one of the world's most important shipping lanes.The French forces launched their early morning attack after observing the pirates overnight. A French surveillance helicopter spotted the pirates' vessel Tuesday, the French Defense Ministry said in a statement.The raid thwarted the sea bandits' planned attack on a Liberian-registered vessel, the ministry said. The ship was intercepted 550 miles east of the Kenyan city of Mombasa.
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