Red Sea nations churning over pirates

Zipping around in swift rubber boats and brandishing automatic weapons, Somali pirates have seized at least 80 ships off the Horn of Africa this year. The tactics have made perilous the shipping routes in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen that lead to the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean. In October, Egypt collected $467.5 million in shipping fees from the canal.

If the fees are jeopardized, "Egyptian prestige will also be undermined because a failure to protect such a strategic resource would prove that Egypt has a very limited regional and military leverage," Salam said. "If we fail to counter this piracy and companies realize that countries along the Red Sea cannot protect the waterways, the impact will be tremendous."

The Red Sea nations, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia, were expected to discuss the possibility of joint naval and military operations to secure the seas. The U.S., India, Russia and European nations have naval forces patrolling near the Gulf of Aden.

"The phenomenon is threatening navigation in the Red Sea, causing some vessels to take other routes," Zaki was quoted as saying.

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jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

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Noha El-Hennawy of The Times' Cairo Bureau contributed to this report.