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 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - The U.S. military has stepped up activities in the pirate-infested waters off Somalia, going to the aid of hijacked cargo ships twice this week. American medics treated wounded North Korean sailors on one vessel, and the Navy was tracking another after destroying two pirate skiffs lashed alongside.
Somalia, on the eastern rim of the Horn of Africa, has had no functioning government since slipping into chaos in 1991 at the beginning of its long civil war. Its waters are among the most pirate-infested anywhere, with more than two dozen ship hijackings this year.
Boats carrying pirates frequently cast off from Somalia's long, arrowhead-shaped shoreline, heading to busy shipping lanes to take over container ships and seize their cargo and crew.
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