MOGADISHU (Somalia), May 15: European Union naval forces in attack helicopters conducted their first onshore raid on a suspected pirate lair in Somalia Tuesday. A pirate said the strike destroyed a supply center and set back their operations.

No deaths were reported in Tuesday morning’s attack on Handulle village, about 18 kilometres north of Haradhere town, a key pirate lair. EU officials said forces did not go on land during the attack in Somalia.

The EU Naval Force announced in March that it would expand its mission to include Somalia’s coast and waterways inside the country for the first time.

Bile Hussein, a pirate commander, said the attack along Somalia’s central coastline destroyed speed boats, fuel depots and an arms store.

“They destroyed our equipment to ashes. It was a key supplies centre for us,” Hussein said. “The fuel contributed to the flames and destruction. Nothing was spared.”

He said nine speed boats were destroyed, and that three of them were on standby for hijackings.

Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said that the raid was carried out with the full knowledge of Somalia’s government and it serves as a message to the pirates that they’ll neither be safe in the sea or on land.

Attack helicopters were used in the early in the morning strike on the mainland, an EU spokesman said.

The EU is the main donor to the Somali transitional government. It also trains Somali army troops, and is reinforcing the navies of five neighbouring countries to enable them to counter piracy themselves. The long coastline of war-ravaged Somalia provides a perfect haven for pirate gangs preying on shipping off the East African coast.

“This action against piracy is part of a comprehensive EU approach to the crisis in Somalia, where we support a lasting political solution on land,” said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.—AP