Since at least 2008, Somali pirates have been extending their area of operations farther to the south and east from Somalia, extending in 2010 to near Madagascar and the southwestern Indian coast. Though there was not much room to grow in any case, 2011 saw the pirates' area of operations contract. The area in which the pirates hijacked ships in 2011, while still considerable, shrunk to about what it was in 2009 (with the exception of the North Arabian Sea, where the pirates maintained the geographic range of operations they expanded to in 2010). Although the Somali pirates' area of operations has contracted, it has only done so on the margins; the pirates are still very active within their core area of the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Therefore, this decrease along the periphery does not necessarily indicate a serious limitation of the pirates' capabilities.
