HMCS Fredericton switching focus from anti-piracy to counterterrorism

Planned in advance:

Frigate to focus on keeping militants out of Yemen

Canadian frigate HMCS Fredericton tests a 57 mm Bofor gun on its decks. The ship will shift its focus to counter-terrorism at the end of February amid increased global concern over the movement of Somalian extremists into nearby Yemen. Its previous mission has been focused on counter-piracy.
Photograph by: Marcel Mochet, AFP/Getty Images

A Canadian frigate patrolling the Gulf of Aden on a NATO counter-piracy mission will shift its focus to counter-terrorism at the end of February amid increased global concern over the movement of Somalian extremists into nearby Yemen.

HMCS Fredericton will be put under the command of an Australian warship leading the counter-terror mission that will also include U.S, British and Pakistani ships along with some from other Middle Eastern countries, Cmdr. Matt Plaschka, a maritime operations officer with the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, said Wednesday [the frigate is under the CF's Operation SAIPH].

Fredericton has been running escort missions [more here] through shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden where Somali pirates have preyed on vessels ranging from private yachts, to container ships and an oil tanker...

The region was suddenly thrust up the list of Western priorities after a Nigerian student, charged after a failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner near Detroit on Dec. 25, was linked to al-Qaida in Yemen.

Yemen is south of Saudi Arabia and a short voyage from Somalia...

It is amid these heightened tensions that HMCS Fredericton enters the counter-terror fray, switching from a law-enforcement mission to one under the "law of armed conflict," said Plaschka.

"It is very much like, if not identical, to the type of mission our soldiers are doing in Afghanistan," he said.

Plaschka, however, said the Canadian warship was scheduled to participate in the ongoing counter-terror operation by coalition forces before its deployment. Recent events did not have an impact on timing of the shift in missions [emphasis added], he said.

Plaschka said Fredericton will be expected to cover waters beyond the Gulf of Aden, but up through the Red Sea or east into the Arabian Sea if called for.

In 2008, HMCS Charlottetown was the last Canadian warship to participate in ongoing counter-terror operations in the region [more here], which are run out of coalition headquarters in Bahrain, said Plaschka. HMCS Winnipeg, which was in the region in early 2009, stuck to counter-piracy operations [more here and here].

Fredericton is expected back in Canada by the end of April.