Official: U.S. Fails To Combat Growing Piracy

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somali forces rescued a hijacked ship carrying food to this desperately poor African nation yesterday, as a top security official accused American troops stationed off the lawless coast of failing to combat growing piracy.

Seven pirates were arrested and three were wounded in the raid on the Dubai-flagged al-Khaleej, a security affairs minister in the semiautonomous Puntland region, Abdullahi Said Samatar, said.

"It is sad that the American forces off the coast of Somalia are here for fun and are not combatting the pirates," Mr. Samatar told the Associated Press.

The U.S. Navy has led international patrols to combat piracy along Somalia's 1,880-mile coast, the longest in Africa and near key shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. Wracked by more than a decade of violence and anarchy, Somalia does not have a navy, and a transitional government formed in 2004 with U.N. help has struggled to assert control.