Chelseafan99:
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — It was supposed to be a U.S.-led naval training maneuver off the coast of West Africa when real-life drama intervened, with pirates taking over an oil tanker and turning the exercise into a rescue mission.

Navies from the United States, Ghana, Togo and Nigeria tracked the hijacked tanker through waters off five countries before Nigerian naval forces stormed aboard on Feb. 20 amid a shootout that killed one of the pirates.

It was the first big success in international maritime cooperation in the pirate-ridden Gulf of Guinea, the commodore in charge of U.S. operations in Africa and Europe told The Associated Press.

Capt. Heidi Agle, the commodore, had been directing a training exercise against piracy with maritime agencies of Ghana when the hijacking provided a real-life lesson, she said in a telephone interview Friday from her base in Italy.

First word came from the French Embassy, which sent information to Agle’s USNS Spearhead via Ghanaian officials and U.S. diplomats of a possible pirate ship loitering off Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

There, pirates seized the Dubai-owned MT Maximus, on lease to a South Korean company and carrying 4,700 tons of diesel fuel, on Feb. 11......continue reading

http://ourtimeiscome.com/2016/02/27/training-exercise-off-w-africa-becomes-real-life-navy-drama/