 By David D Laitin and Afyare Abdi Elmi Somalia remains a powder keg. Since Ethiopian forces withdrew in January 2009, there are ghastly reports of killings and internally displaced populations. Meanwhile, the al-Shabab Islamic movement, a group on the United States' list of terrorist organisations, has been expanding its sphere of influence and now controls most of southern Somalia. Unlike the overwhelming majority of Somalia's Islamist organisations with nationalist agendas, al-Shabab's spokesmen have openly stated that while it is not officially a member, it has the same enemies and objectives as al-Qaeda.
However, Somalia's security challenges for the West are not limited to terrorism. Despite some rescues, piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia remain a problem and last year Somali pirates attacked 111 ships, capturing 42. Because of this, between $80-$150mn in ransom money was paid to Somali-based pirates last year, in addition to the costs incurred by states in safeguarding the shipping lanes and by companies of insurance premiums. But there is now a window of opportunity. The time is ripe to build upon some early successes of the African Union forces in Mogadishu, to take advantage of the alliance between moderate Islamists and the transitional government, and to authorise a new UN peacekeeping mission.
In the face of continued violence, the African Union has scored some surprising successes. The experience of Burundi, which sent a well-disciplined force to Somalia, is encouraging. Burundi peacekeepers have provided medical assistance to injured civilians and they have not used excessive force against civilians. Furthermore, the UN special representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, who helped stabilise Burundi, has coordinated the UN-sponsored peace process in Djibouti with skill. He convinced the leadership of the Islamist Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia - including the current president of the country, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed - to negotiate and share power with the government they fought against for two years. Ould-Abdallah also brought them into the top cabinet positions in a national unity government, along with some leading members of civil society who were not associated with clan-based warlords.
His success in bringing in the moderate factions of the Islamist Alliance demonstrates that the US need not see all Islamist movements as international "jihadists" threatening Western interests, especially among Somalis, who are resistant to all attempts at subjugation. Read more here,,,, Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 A SPANISH warship has intercepted a skiff carrying nine suspected Somali pirates believed to have attacked an Italian cruise ship at the weekend, the defence ministry said today. The Numancia frigate “intercepted a skiff with nine occupants who could be connected to the hijacking attempt of the Italian cruise ship which was eventually repelled by the boat,” it said in a statement.
The cruise liner Melody, carrying more than 1,500 people, was attacked on Saturday but Israeli security guards on board the ship responded to the pirates' gunfire and were able to repel them.
After the hijacking attempt The Numancia, along with patrol planes from France and the Seychelles and an Indian navy ship, launched a high-seas hunt for the assailants.
During the search, the naval mission found “two small boats with nine suspects on board very close to the scene of the attack against the cruise,” the Spanish defence ministry said.
The suspects abandoned one the boats and were later caught in the skiff. The Spanish navy handed over the suspects to a Seychelles ship since they were captured in the island nation's waters in the Indian Ocean.
A commander of the pirates who attacked the cruise ship described the bandits' attempt to seize the boat in an interview with AFP today.
“Unfortunately, for technical reasons, we could not seize the ship,” Mohamed Muse told AFP by phone from the pirate lair of Eyl, in the northern Somali breakaway state of Puntland.
“We were aware that hijacking such a big ship would have been a new landmark in piracy off the coast of Somalia but unfortunately they used good tactics and we were not able to board,” he said.
“It was not the first time we went for that kind of ship and this time we came closer to capturing it and we really sprayed it with gunfire,” Muse said.
The captain of the cruise liner, Ciro Pinto, said the attack had felt like a war, and praised the response of the security guards.
“The ship was very big and there were only a dozen pirates involved in the attack so we eventually had to decide to back off after chasing it for close to 30 minutes,” Muse said.
Somali pirates are currently holding at least 16 ships and more than 250 seamen to ransom. Attacks surged in April as calm seas allowed them to approach their prey more easily and dodge the increasing naval presence in the region.
 A TEENAGED pirate captured by US forces in a high-seas drama off Somalia has been ordered to stand trial as an adult on charges that include "piracy under the law of nations". Somali teen authorities say is the lone survivor of a failed pirate attack faces charges of hostage taking and piracy in a federal court in Manhattan. Abdi Wali Abdi Khadir Muse, wearing a blue T-shirt and with head lowered as he entered the court with an interpreter, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted on the most serious charge, prosecutors said. Judge Andrew Peck ruled the young Somali would be tried as an adult after rejecting a claim by the defendant's father that Muse was only 15 years old. Prosecutors said he was over 18. “Mr Muse's father's testimony was not credible,” said Peck. “The court ruled that the defendant must be treated as an adult.” The five charges filed against Muse were piracy “under the law of nations,” conspiracy to seize a ship by force, conspiracy to take hostages, and discharging and brandishing a firearm in the course of a hostage-taking. Muse was one of four Somali pirates who swarmed the US container ship Maersk Alabama on April 8, and later fled taking its American captain, Richard Phillips, as a hostage in a small life boat. Muse, who prosecutors described as the group's leader, was taken into custody April 12 after he boarded the USS Bainbridge to demand safe passage in return for Phillips's release. On the fifth day of the ordeal, US Navy snipers shot dead the other three pirates and rescued Phillips. Flown to New York, a smiling Muse was led by federal agents past a bank of media cameras and into New York's Federal Plaza in a driving rainstorm after his arrival. His left hand was heavily bandaged with white gauze, the result of an injury sustained aboard the Maersk Alabama when a US crewmember stabbed him during a struggle for control of the freighter. The Maersk Alabama saga captured the world's attention and vividly highlighted the dangers posed by low-tech pirates in some of the world's most strategic shipping lanes. The incident was highly unusual because the unarmed, all-American crew fought back and prevented the pirates from taking control of their vessel. Phillips returned home to Vermont last welcome to a hero's welcome. An issue surrounding Muse's capture and the unusual decision to try him in the US courts was his age. Reports out of New York said he was 19. But Voice of America reported that his father, Abdilkadir Muse, said his son was 16 years old, and had not been in previous trouble. A court-appointed lawyer Phil Weinstein told the court he had spoken to the alleged pirate's father by telephone. “He says his son was born on November 20, 1993,” which would make him 15, Weinstein said. The Washington Post reported that if Muse is indicted by a grand jury it would be the first major test in years of American anti-piracy laws, which date back to the 19th century. “Trying pirates in the US for an attack on an American vessel makes more sense than any other scenario I can think of,” piracy law expert Samuel Menefee told The Washington Post. “If there are any problems with American law, certainly now is the time to find out so that we can bring our law on the subject into the 21st century.” The hijacking of the Maersk Alabama was an early test of the Obama administration and has prompted calls for tightened measures to protect US ships in the busy shipping lanes off the Horn of Africa. One US senator, Dianne Feinstein, has called for US-flagged vessels operating in pirate-cruised waters off Somalia's coast to carry armed security teams, and has written to Mr Obama proposing the measure. “I believe that any US-flag shipping vessel operating in the Gulf of Aden or the Straits of Malacca _ or in any other high piracy zone _ should be required to have armed security teams aboard,” Senator Feinstein said. Muse's court appearance comes as other Somali pirates released an Asian chemical tanker they captured five months ago. But they are still holding at least 17 other ships as high-seas attacks in 2009 soared to record levels.
Source: The Australian
 
Jihad -- high seas style
In a recent Pajamas Media article, I discuss the doctrinal and historic roots of the sea-jihad. Hyperlinks can be found in the original: During the recent Somali pirate standoff with U.S. forces, when American sea captain Richard Phillips was being held hostage, Fox News analyst Charles Krauthammer confidently concluded that “the good news is that these [pirates] are not jihadists. If it’s a jihadist holding a hostage, there is going to be a lot of death. These guys are interested not in martyrdom but in money.” In fact, the only good news is that Richard Phillips has been rescued. The bad news is that what appears to have been a bunch of lawless, plunder-seeking Somalis “yo-hoing” on the high seas is, in fact, a manifestation of the jihad — as attested to by both Islamic history and doctrine. Indeed, the first jihad a newborn U.S. encountered was of a pirate nature: the Barbary Wars off the coast of North Africa (beginning 1801, exactly 200 years before September 11, 2001). Writing in the Middle East Quarterly a year before Somali piracy made headlines, U.S. sea captain Melvin E. Lee — who knows in theory what Captain Phillips may have learned in practice — writes: What Americans and Europeans saw as piracy, Barbary leaders justified as legitimate jihad. [President Thomas] Jefferson related a conversation he had in Paris with Ambassador Abdrahaman of Tripoli, who told him that all Christians are sinners in the context of the Koran and that it was a Muslim’s “right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to enslave as many as they could take as prisoners.” Lee goes on to reflect: “One of the greatest challenges facing strategic leaders today is objectively examining the centuries-old roots of Islamic jihadism and developing a strategy that will lead to a lasting solution to the Western conflict with it. … This inability to grasp the root of Islamic jihadism is the result of a moral relativism prominent in modern Western liberal thought.” This last point is especially poignant. While U.S. leadership is capable of mouthing history, so too is it in the habit of distorting history through such “moral relativism.” Hillary Clinton, for example, in a press conference about the Somali kidnapping crisis, put an interesting spin on the Barbary Wars when she said — in between fits of hysterical and inexplicable laughter — that America and Morocco worked “together to end piracy off the coast of Morocco all those years ago, and, uh, we’re going to work together to end, uh, this kind of, uh, criminal activity anywhere on the high seas.” Historical anecdotes aside, it need be acknowledged that, doctrinally speaking, the jihad has various manifestations; it is not limited to bearded, “Allah Akbar”-screaming mujahidin fighting in Afghanistan and lurking in caves. Along with jihad al-lissan and jihad al-qalam (jihad of the tongue and pen, respectively, i.e., propaganda jihad), one of the most important forms of jihad is known as jihad al-mal — or “money jihad.” The money jihad is fulfilled whenever a Muslim financially supports the more familiar violent jihad. The Koran itself declares: “Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if you but knew” (9:41). Several other verses (see 9:20, 9:60, 49:15, and 61:10-11) make the same assertion and, more importantly, in the same order: striving with one’s wealth almost always precedes striving with one’s life, thereby prioritizing the former over the latter, at least according to a number of jurists and mufasirin. Muhammad himself, according to a canonical hadith (collected by al-Tirmidhi), said: “He who equips a raider [i.e., mujahid] so he can wage jihad in Allah’s path … is himself a raider [i.e., achieves the same status of mujahid].” Moreover, the seafaring jihadist — or, in Western parlance, the “pirate” — is forgiven all sins upon setting foot in a boat to wage war upon infidels; he receives double the reward of his terrestrial counterpart — which is saying much considering the martyred mujahid is, of all Muslims, guaranteed the highest celestial rewards (see Majid Khadduri’s magisterial War and Peace in the Law of Islam, p. 113). There’s more. Islamic law (Sharia), what mainland Somali Islamists have been successfully waging a jihad to implement, has much to say about kidnapping, ransom demands, and slavery. U.S. leadership should keep this in mind if and when they consider the plight of the other 200 hostages in Somalia. According to Sharia, there are only four ways to deal with infidel hostages: 1) execution, 2) enslavement, 3) exchange for Muslim prisoners, or 4) exchange for ransom. Those hostages who have not been executed are therefore currently living as slaves to their Somali overlords. This is clearly the case of Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout, for whom the Somalis are demanding $2.5 million in ransom. Eight months ago, she was abducted, raped, and impregnated by Somali Islamists and is currently “owned” by them — or, in the words of the Koran (e.g., 4:3), she is ma malakat aymankum, i.e., human “property” conquered and possessed by jihadi force: The term spoil (ghanima) is applied specifically to property acquired by force from non-Muslims. It includes, however, not only property (movable and immovable) but also persons, whether in the capacity of asra (prisoners of war) or sabi (women and children). … If the slave were a woman, the master was permitted to have sexual connection with her as a concubine (Khadduri, p. 119, 131). Finally, for those readers who refuse to interpret modern-day events in light of “antiquated” history or religious doctrine, here’s an August 2008 Reuters report revealing that what top news analysts are now dismissing as a bunch of random pirates scouring the coast of Somalia are directly related to the mainland, if not international, jihad: An explosion of piracy this month off the coast of Somalia is funding a growing insurgency onshore as the hijackers funnel hefty ransom payments to Islamist rebels. … According to our information, the money they make from piracy and ransoms goes to support al-Shabaab activities onshore. Al-Shabaab (”the youth”), of course, are the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists currently taking over Somalia. Thus, in the words of Krauthammer, whereas “these guys are interested not in martyrdom but in money,” the facts remain: this money funds the greater jihad; and those “pirates” slain by U.S. (”infidel”) firearms are indeed being portrayed as martyrs, as having achieved the highest pinnacle of paradise. Does this mean that all pirates who happen to be Muslim are funding the jihad and fervently seeking after “martyrdom”? No. But it is a reminder that what may appear to Americans as “um, criminal activities” (in the memorable hilarities of Hillary) have a long pedigree and, within an Islamist context, have much method to their madness. From Muhammad’s 7th-century caravan raids (which were also motivated by plunder), to modern-day Somali piracy, so long as jihadi doctrines continue providing the base proclivities of man with a veneer of respectability, indeed, piety, so long will such behavior be endemic to the lands — and waterways — of the jihad, irrespective of true motivation. Source: Jihad Watch
PARIS: A French warship patrolling waters off East Africa as part of an EU anti-piracy force last night intercepted a pirate mother ship and arrested 11 gunmen. The frigate Nivose chased the pirates 930km east of the Kenyan coast after tracking them from the scene of a failed attack on a Liberian-registered vessel. "The pirates were sailing a 10-metre mother ship carrying 17 drums holding 200 litres of fuel each and two assault skiffs," a Defence Ministry spokesman said. The captives were being held on board the Nivose. The day before pirates attacked an American freighter with rocket fire and machine guns in revenge for the killing of their comrades in the operation that freed US captain Richard Phillips. The Liberty Sun escaped the attack even as other vessels fell into the clutches of marauding Somali bandits. Pirate commander Abdi Garad said last night the attack late on Tuesday was the first against "our prime target". "We intended to destroy this American-flagged ship and the crew on board, but unfortunately they narrowly escaped us," hesaid. "The aim of this attack was totally different. We were not after a ransom. We also assigned a team with special equipment to chase and destroy any ship flying the American flag in retaliation for the brutal killing of our friends." Captain Phillips was saved when navy snipers killed three pirates to end the high-seas drama on Monday. Pirates have taken four ships since losing two battles with US and French forces at the weekend. The Liberty Sun, heading for the Kenyan port of Mombasa with food aid, was their latest target. USS Bainbridge, which mounted the operation to rescue Captain Phillips, whose freighter Maersk Alabama was also carrying food aid to Africa when hijacked last Wednesday, came to the rescue of the Liberty Sun. Crew members gave a dramatic account of the attack. "We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets. Also bullets," crewman Thomas Urbik told his mother in email messages, CNN reported. "We are barricaded in the engine room and so far no one is hurt. A rocket penetrated the bulkhead but the hole is small. Small fire, too, but put out." Mr Urbik said the US Navy escorted the ship to safety. "The navy has showed up. We are now under military escort." US President Barack Obama has pledged to curb piracy, but since the rescue of Captain Phillips and some French hostages in separate military missions, the bandits have taken four vessels. The MV Irena, a 35,000-tonne Greek-operated ship, was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. Its 22 Filipino crew are believed to be safe. A second Lebanese-owned freighter, the Sea Horse, was seized off the Horn of Africa. Source: The Australian
DESPITE the popularity of successive Pirates of the Caribbean films, real pirates are not cuddly criminals. Nor are they members of an oppressed minority group suffering from low self-esteem. They are murderers and kidnappers who live by the gun and understand only one thing - force. Sunday’s successful rescue of American sea captain Richard Phillips, after US President Barack Obama authorised the use of force against the Somali pirates who held him captive, emphasises that reality. A team of US Navy SEALS aboard the USS Bainbridge freed Phillips after shooting his captors from their position about 30m away, a ridiculously easy shot for trained marksmen. This followed an earlier rescue of a French yacht crew by French commandos, during which a French yachtsman was killed, possibly by the French rescue team. A photograph of the French crew taken before their rescue shows an anguished woman held at gunpoint by a young pirate armed with an automatic weapon. Anyone who doubts the ruthlessness of the pirates should use that image as a reality check. The US effort marked Obama’s first authorisation of force against a group hostile to Americans, and it is reported that he received news of the successful rescue 11 minutes after it was completed, and spoke with Phillips shortly after. To date the Obama administration has attempted to fudge its commitment to fighting forces opposed to the US. While it has rebadged the “war on terrorism” as “overseas contingency operations” and terrorist attacks are now to be called “man-caused disasters”, piracy remains piracy. The US is revisiting a sea-borne scourge that has existed since the 14th Century. Somali pirates still hold about 300 captives and 17 ships but, as few are Westerners, there remains little international indignation about their plight. It was not always so. When Britain ruled the waves, pirates weren’t tolerated. If captured alive, their trials were short and their sentences terminal. Hanging was the norm. With American independence in 1776, the US navy’s first major achievement was cleansing the entrance of the Mediterranean of the Barbary pirates who operated out of north Africa. Using swift galleys rowed by slaves, these pirates enslaved their captives, sent any women captured to harems, and were known for their brutality. They were so successful that they were able to demand tribute from the nations which traded into the Mediterranean, until Thomas Jefferson became US president and deemed the annual ransom had to stop. In 1801, Jefferson launched a war against the Barbary pirates which eventually saw the US flag fly over Derna, Libya’s second-largest city, a feat which is remembered in the line in the Marine hymn: “From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli.” The war ran until 1812 when president James Madison sent Captain Stephen Decatur into action against Omar the Terrible, the ruler of Algiers. Within 16 days of entering the Med, Decatur triumphed with a treaty he said was “dictated at the mouths of our cannon”. Mediterranean piracy was dead. In the shallow waters around South East Asia however, piracy was in the ascendancy. The narrow straits which ran through the many archipelagoes proved ideal for opportunistic pirates. The British navy was sent in to deliver justice and accounts published at the time show how successful they were. In one dispatch published in The Hobart Courier of February 20, 1850, Captain Hay of the Columbine reported that in an action on October 2, 1849, 23 “piratical junks averaging 500 tons, mounting from 12 to l8 guns, three new ones on the stocks, and two small dock-yards, with a considerable supply of naval stores, have been totally destroyed by fire; and of 1800 men who manned them, about 400 have been killed, and the rest dispersed without resource”. In the same newspaper, there was an account of the destruction of Shap-ng-tsai’s pirate fleet by a Royal Navy squadron under the command of a Captain Hay. In all 1700 were killed. The West has forgotten some hard-learnt lessons on dealing with pirates. They are worth revisiting. Source: The Daily Telegraph
SOMALI pirates have threatened revenge after two separate hostage-rescue raids by foreign forces killed at least five comrades, raising fears of future bloodshed on the high seas.  Picture: Reuters The latest raid by US forces this morning saved American hostage Capt Richard Phillips. Three pirates were killed and one was taken captive, the US Navy said. That rescue mission and one by France last week have upped the stakes in shipping lanes off the anarchic Horn of Africa nation where pirate gangs have defied foreign naval patrols. "The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now," Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite phone. "We cannot know how or whether our friends on the lifeboat died, but this will not stop us from hijacking," he said. Sea gangs generally treat their captives well, hoping to fetch top dollar in ransoms. The worst violence has been an occasional beating. "We shall revenge," said another pirate, Aden, in Eyl village, a pirate lair on Somalia's eastern coast. Some fear the US and French operations may make the modern-day pirates more like those of previous centuries. "The pirates will know from now that anything can happen. The French are doing this, the Americans are doing it. Things will be more violent from now on," said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers Assistance Program. "This is a big wake-up to the pirates. It raises the stakes." Piracy is lucrative business in Somalia, where gangs have earned millions of dollars in ransoms, splashing it on wives, houses, cars and fancy goods. After a wane in business early this year, pirates have struck back. They presently hold more than a dozen vessels with about 260 hostages, of whom about 100 are Filipino. Eyl, Haradheere and other pirate havens along the Indian Ocean coastline have come back to life with the windfall of successful operations. Somalia's anarchy - whose 18 years of civil war have given sea gangs assault rifles, grenade launchers and little central control - has long been ignored by world powers. The saga over the capture of Capt Phillips has thrown international attention on the long-running piracy phenomenon that has hiked up insurance costs on strategic waterways where warships now patrol. "Killing three out of thousands of pirates will only escalate piracy," said Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yusuf, spokesman of the moderate Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca. Source: The Australian
Somali pirates have captured a US tug and its 16-strong crew, a Kenyan official reported on Saturday, hours after another group holding a US captain hostage warned against any attempt to free him. French Defence Minister Herve Morin meanwhile defended Friday's marine raid on a French yacht in the region that left one hostage and two pirates dead. Somali pirates captured the US-owned, Italian-flagged tug and its 16-strong crew on Saturday at around 11am local time, Andrew Mwangura of Kenya's East African Seafarers Assistance Program told AFP. "The 16 crew members are all safe," he added. But he did not know the name of the boat. Ten of the 16 crew are Italians, Italy's foreign ministry said in a statement, without giving any details. It was just the latest in a series of raids in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, despite the presence of an international task force in the region to defend international shipping using the busy passage. Meanwhile, pirate commander Abdi Garad, speaking from the northern Somali pirate lair of Eyl, told AFP that US Captain Richard Phillips would be moved from the lifeboat where he was being held to another ship off the Somali coast. On Friday, Phillips jumped into the water and tried to swim towards the nearby US destroyer the USS Bainbridge, but was recaptured. Only four pirates are guarding him on the lifeboat, but transfer to a larger ship would make it easier for them to thwart any US military attempt to free him. US Navy forces have been pouring into the region amid the standoff over Philipps, who has been held hostage since Wednesday, since the Danish-operated container ship he commanded was attacked. The four pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama, carrying 5,000 tonnes of UN aid destined for African refugees. Its unarmed American crew managed to take back control of the ship, but the pirates bundled Phillips onto the lifeboat as they escaped. Any attempt to free him would be disastrous, warned Garad. "I'm afraid this matter is likely to create disaster because it's taking too long and we are getting information that the Americans are planning rescue tricks like the French commandos did," he said. Somali elders and parents of pirates holding the American were trying to free the American on Saturday "without any guns or ransom", said Mwangura in a statement from Kenya. But a spokesman for Somalia's hardline Islamist group Shebab backed the recent rash of pirate attacks. "I believe that the pirates are not wrong to hijack the ships because there is no reason for the international ships to use Somalia's waters," Sheikh Muktar Robow told reporters in the south-central Somali city of Baidoa. He blamed the international community for depleting the country's marine resources and dumping their waste there. Officers of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation meanwhile were waiting to debrief the crew of the Maersk Alabama on their arrival at the Kenyan port of Mombasa, said a statement from the ship's owners Maersk. Friday's raid by French marines came six days after the yacht, the Tanit, was seized in the Gulf of Aden. Although French forces freed three adults and a three-year-old boy, a fourth man, Florent Lemacon, the owner of the yacht and the child's father, was killed. French Defence Minister Herve Morin said on Saturday an autopsy and investigation would determine what had happened. But he could not rule out that the fatal shot had come from the French forces. "We did everything to save the hostages' lives," Morin said on French radio. The Tanit had been heading toward the coast and the pirates' threats were "becoming more and more specific", said a spokesman from the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday. France's policy is not to let pirates take their hostages ashore, he added. The four ex-hostages - Lemacon's wife Chloe, their three-year-old son Colin and two other adults - were due in Paris on Sunday aboard a French-chartered plane, Morin told AFP. Sarkozy had spoken by telephone with both Chloe Lemacon and the dead man's father on Saturday, said a spokesman from his office. Source: The Age
THE US ship captain being held hostage in a lifeboat by pirates off Somalia managed to jump off the boat but failed to escape his captors, US networks have reported. Captain Richard Phillips jumped into the water during the night and tried to swim towards the nearby US destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, but pirates jumped into the water and recaptured him, three television networks reported. US military officials said Captain Phillips was fine, and that the pirates did not hurt him. The pirate commander said that he was demanding a ransom to free Captain Phillips. "We are demanding to get ransom and to return home safely before releasing the captain," Abdi Garad said. Mr Garad also said their men were negotiating with the US navy "not to be arrested if they release the captain and the American officials will hopefully fulfil that condition otherwise the captain will not be released." Source: The Australian
 A Danish shipping company says one of its U.S-flagged ships, the
Maersk Alabama, (above center) has been hijacked off Somalia with at
least 20 American crew members on board. Six vessels have been
hijacked in the last week by Somalian pirates, like the ones shown
in these file images. THE crew of a US-flagged, Danish-owned freighter hijacked by pirates off Somalia have retaken control of the ship but their captain is still being held hostage on a lifeboat. For the first time a ship with a US crew was hijacked by Somali pirates. The crew of 20 Americans were in control of the ship and were trying to negotiate their captain's release while they waited for a US warship to arrive, second mate Ken Quinn told CNN. "We are just trying to offer them whatever we can, food, but it is not working too good," Mr Quinn said. "We have a coalition warship that will be here in three hours. We are just trying to hold them off for three more hours and then we will have a warship here to help us," he said. The ship's operator, Maersk Line Ltd, confirmed that the US crew had regained control of the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama after the pirates left the ship with one hostage. A spokesman for the company said no injuries had been reported for the rest of the crew left aboard. Maritime officials said the Maersk Alabama was carrying food aid for Somalia and Uganda from Djibouti to Mombasa, a Kenyan port, when it was seized far out in the Indian Ocean. The seizure was the latest in an escalation in pirate attacks off the lawless Horn of Africa country of Somalia. "We can confirm that our crew has control of the ship. The pirates have departed the ship and they have taken one crew member with them as a hostage," the Maersk Line spokesman said, but could not confirm whether the hostage was the captain. A Pentagon spokeswoman, Army Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Hibner, said the US Navy destroyer Bainbridge was en route. Details on how far away it was were not immediately available. The ship seizure, about 480km off Somalia, was the first time Somali pirates have seized US citizens, if only briefly. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was very worried by the hijacking and called for world action to end the "scourge" of piracy. "We are deeply concerned and we are following it very closely," Ms Clinton said in Washington. "Specifically, we are now focused on this particular act of piracy and the seizure of the ship that carries 21 American citizens. More generally, we think the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy." The Maersk Line spokesman said that the company was working with the US military and other government agencies to address the situation. Mr Quinn said the four pirates sank their own boat when they boarded the container ship. However, the captain talked them into getting off the freighter and into the ship's lifeboat with him. The crew then overpowered one of the pirates and sought to exchange him for the captain, Mr Quinn told CNN. "We kept him for 12 hours. We tied him up," he said. The crew released their captive to the other pirates, but the exchange did not work and the captain was still being held by the pirates on the lifeboat. "They are not aboard. We are controlling" the ship, he said. Maersk Line is a Norfolk, Virginia-based subsidiary of Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world's biggest container shipper. Among the ship's cargo were 400 containers of food aid, including 232 containers belonging to the UN's World Food Program that were destined for Somalia and Uganda. The seizure was the latest in a wave of pirate attacks. Gunmen from Somalia seized a British-owned ship on Monday after hijacking another three vessels over the weekend. In the first three months of 2009 just eight ships were hijacked in the strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to Europe via the Suez Canal. Last year, heavily armed Somali pirates hijacked dozens of vessels, took hundreds of sailors hostage often for weeks and extracted millions of dollars in ransoms. Foreign navies sent warships to the area in response and reduced the number of successful attacks. Source: The Australian
 January 11, 2009
SIX Somali pirates who hijacked a Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of the ransom when their boat capsized as it left the vessel, their leader said yesterday.
Four others were missing with their share of the $3m payoff, which been parachuted on to the tanker on Friday, Mohamed Said said by phone from the port of Harardhere.
"The small boat that was carrying those killed and eight who survived was overloaded ... they were afraid of a chase from outsiders (foreign navies of the combined maritime forces)," he said.
Mohamud Aden, a resident of the port off which the tanker had been anchored watched by the warships, said: "The capsize was an accident. The pirates were full of joy and partially frightened by the presence of foreign war machines and were speeding.
That was a tragedy for the pirates." In all, several dozen raiders had held the ship and its 25-member crew, including two Britons, to ransom.
They were well-armed and disciplined but as soon as they got the ransom a shootout nearly broke out, it was reported. The 1,080ft Sirius Star, owned by Aramco, is the largest vessel hijacked by the Somali pirates.
It was seized in November in the Indian Ocean, well outside the raiders' usual operating area. The tanker was carrying 2m barrels of oil, more than a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily output and worth an estimated $100m.
Its capture was seen as a dramatic demonstration of the pirates' ability to strike hundreds of miles offshore. The tanker's crew included second officer Jim Grady, from Renfrewshire, and chief engineer Peter French, from Co Durham.
Yesterday they were looking forward to coming home, though latest reports said the ship was still anchored off Harardhere. More than 100 ships were attacked off the Horn of Africa last year and maritime officials said the problem was out of control.
The pirates were said to have raked in $120m and still hold some 14 merchant ships and 300 crew.
The Sirius Star's release came as the US Fifth Fleet announced that a taskforce targeting piracy would be launching later this month. Nato and the European Union have warships in the Gulf and the Chinese navy has said it will assist. Source: The Australian Drowned Somali Pirates
Latest recipients of the Evil Dumbass Award
  China will send two navy destroyers and a supply vessel to the Gulf of Aden to protect merchant ships from attacks by Somali pirates, state media have said.
Chinese defence ministry spokesman Hu Changming told the Xinhua news agency that the three ships would set sail from the port of Sanya on 26 December.
Several countries have sent forces to combat the pirates, who have attacked more than 100 ships this year.
Among those still held is a Saudi oil tanker and a Ukrainian ship with tanks.
They are among 15 vessels the pirates hold for ransom.
The three Chinese ships, part of the country's South Sea Fleet, will leave Sanya on Friday for the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia, Mr Hu said.
Their main mission would be to protect the safety of Chinese vessels and their crews in the region, as well as protecting vessels delivering humanitarian aid international organisations, he added.
The defence ministry spokesman said the ships would abide strictly to the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and international law, and would be willing to co-operate with other convoy protection ships from concerned countries.
They will also participate in humanitarian assistance missions.
At a news conference on Thursday, foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said 20% of Chinese ships passing through the region between January and November this year had been attacked by Somali pirates.
Correspondents say the deployment will be the first of its kind for a country that has traditionally followed a doctrine of non-interference in other nations' affairs.
But world leaders have called for greater action to deal with the problem and last week, the UN approved a resolution allowing foreign troops to pursue pirates on land in Somalia.
The Chinese taskforce will join warships from the EU, US, India, Russia, Malaysia and others which are already patrolling in the area.
Earlier, an Iranian warship began patrolling in the gulf, where two Iranian vessels have been hijacked recently, state radio reported. Source: BBC
 November 25, 2008
MOGADISHU: Tension mounted yesterday between pirates holding a Saudi tanker and Islamist fighters threatening to attack them, with a week remaining for the ship's owners to meet a $US25million ($40million) ransom demand.
"If the pirates want peace, they had better release the tanker," said Sheik Ahmed, a spokesman for the Shebab group in the coastal region of Harardhere.
The Shebab (youth) armed group, which controls much of southern and central Somalia and rejects an internationally backed peace process, has positioned fighters in and around Harardhere in recent days.
The Sirius Star, a tanker carrying about $US100million worth of crude oil and owned by Saudi Aramco, was hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean on November 15. Pirates have anchored it off their base in Harardhere, north of Mogadishu, and demanded the ransom be paid by November 30.
Islamist leaders have stressed that piracy is a capital offence under Islam and condemned the surge in acts of piracy in Somalia's waters. Mohamed Said, a member of the pirate group holding the Sirius Star, retorted that his men were not afraid of the Shebab's threats.
Some Harardhere residents have argued the Shebab are divided over the issue of piracy and that some of the Islamist fighters have moved in only to claim a share of the ransom.
Members of the pirate group said talks were under way with Saudi Aramco's shipping arm and gave assurances that the crew would not be harmed.
The capture of the Sirius Star, the biggest ship ever hijacked, has caused panic in the shipping world. Companies are now re-routing deliveries via the Cape of Good Hope. Source: The Australian
 By Caroline Alexander and Marianne Stigset | Nov. 21
Saudi Arabia said it will join a fleet of NATO warships on an anti-piracy mission, as hijackers bolstered defenses around an oil-laden Saudi tanker captured off the East African coast.
The kingdom will contribute "naval assets to help in pursuing piracy in the region, and this is the only way this can be dealt with," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters in Oslo today after meeting with his Norwegian counterpart, Jonas Gahr Stoere. "Negotiations and ransoms only encourage piracy and are not a solution."
Al-Faisal didn't provide details of the Saudi contribution to the forces in the Gulf of Aden, flanked by Somalia and Yemen and leading to the Suez Canal, where at least 91 merchant vessels have been attacked since January. The Saudi ship is being held for a ransom of $25 million.
In Harardhare, a town in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region close to where the ship is anchored, pirates are bringing in extra fighters to strengthen security, Bile Mohamoud Qabowsade, senior adviser to Puntland President Adde Muse, said in an interview yesterday.
The Sirius Star, which belongs to Saudi Arabia's state-owned shipping line, Vela International Marine Ltd., along with its crew of 25 was seized on Nov. 15 about 420 nautical miles (833 kilometers) off Somalia. It is carrying more than 2 million barrels of crude valued at about $110 million. The ship itself is worth about $148 million new.
The Saudi foreign minister confirmed two days ago that Vela was in talks with the pirates; Vela has declined to comment. A man who identified himself as Abdi Salan, a member of the hijacking gang, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the ship's owners must pay up "soon." He didn't say what would happen if they didn't.
Military Role
Predicting the outcome of the negotiations, or how much the pirates may receive in the end, is difficult, said Andreas Sohmen-Pao, chief executive officer of BW Shipping Managers Pte, one of the world's largest shipping operators.
"These negotiations tend to take place in private," he said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "This is an opening negotiation and no one knows where it will end up."
The only long-term solution is for navies to step up their efforts to protect merchant ships, Sohmen-Pao said.
"Merchant ships are not designed or equipped to fend off pirates," he said. And the alternative of taking the longer route around South Africa's Cape of Good Hope "is complicated."
The ransom may be the highest sum demanded by pirates from war-torn Somalia, which hasn't had an effective government since the 1991 fall of the Siad Barre regime. They have asked for an average of $1 million per ship this year, according to the London-based research organization Chatham House.
NATO Warships
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has four warships off Somalia. India, Malaysia and Russia have sent warships, and a European Union fleet is expected to reach the zone next month. The U.S. coalition in Afghanistan has a task force there, bringing the total of warships in the area to 15, according to French military spokesman Christophe Prazuck. The area is almost twice the size of Alaska.
The seizure of the oil tanker may push Western navies to step up their actions against hijackers, who find potential targets with Global Positioning System navigational aids and satellite phones and use captured fishing trawlers to launch attacks out at sea, according to an October report by Chatham House.
NATO is considering changes to its operations in the area, even if it isn't immediately planning to send more ships, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, chairman of the alliance's military committee, said at a news conference in Brussels this week.
German Parliamentary Vote
Germany's parliament will vote this month or next on whether to join the EU fleet and Russia is likely to add to its one ship in the area, the Neustrashimy, or Intrepid, a navy spokesman said.
The navies of India, Russia, France, Britain and Germany have all battled pirate vessels in the past 12 days alone.
Military action is "the only solution," Jens Martin Jensen, interim chief executive officer of Frontline Ltd.'s management unit, the world's biggest owner of supertankers, said in a telephone interview. He called for navies to be given a clearer mandate "of what they can do and what they can't."
Jean Ping, chairman of the African Union Commission, said yesterday that piracy off the coast of Somalia indicated a further deterioration in the country's political situation.
UN Force
He called in an e-mailed statement for "more sustained and coordinated efforts by the international community to support the peace efforts in Somalia, including the early deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces."
The Sirius Star's crew includes citizens of Croatia, the U.K., the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia. Its hijacking, from boarding to the pirates' taking control, took just 16 minutes, Agence France-Presse said yesterday, citing U.K. reports.
The military reports said the tanker was too large and too laden to outmaneuver pirate speedboats, and was poorly defended, according to AFP.
It was the most brazen assault yet in the region, as it was the largest vessel seized worldwide and was the farthest from the coast when attacked. Source: Bloomberg
 Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world's biggest hijack, a local elder said.
Separately, police in the capital Mogadishu said they had ambushed and shot dead 17 Islamist militants, in the latest illustration of the chaos in the Horn of Africa country that has fuelled a dramatic surge in piracy.
The Sirius Star - a Saudi vessel with a $US100 million oil cargo and 25-man crew from the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Poland and Britain - is believed to be anchored offshore near Haradheere, about half-way up Somalia's long coastline.
"Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country and hijacking its ship is a bigger crime than other ships," Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, an Islamist spokesman, told Reuters.
"Haradheere is under our control and we shall do something about that ship."
Both the US Navy and Dubai-based ship operator Vela International said they could not confirm a media report the hijackers were demanding a $US25 million ransom.
That would be the biggest demand to date by pirates who prey on boats in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean off Somalia.
A pirate identifying himself as Jamii Adam told the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that negotiations were taking place with the ship's owners, saying the ransom demanded was not excessive but declining to give a figure.
He said it had cost the pirates $US500,000 to seize the vessel. "We bore many costs to hijack it," he said.
Iran's biggest shipping firm said gunmen holding a Hong Kong-flagged ship carrying wheat and 25 crew members had set demands for its release, but it did not reveal what they were.
But pirates released a Greek-owned chemical tanker and its crew they hijacked in September, a Kenyan maritime official told AFP.
"The pirates released the ship today and it is now sailing to freedom," said Andrew Mwangura, the head of the East African Seafarers Association.
The Liberia-flagged MV Genius was seized in the treacherous Gulf of Aden waters on September 25 with 19 Romanian crew members while on its way to the Middle East from Europe.
Mr Mwangura said it was unclear whether ransom was paid, but pirates often free freighters after a huge payout.
An upsurge of attacks this year has forced up shipping insurance costs, made some firms go round South Africa instead of via the Suez Canal, brought millions in ransom payments, and prompted an international naval response.
In Mogadishu, police said they laid in wait and shot dead 17 fighters from the militant al Shabaab insurgent group during an attempted attack on a senior official.
The Islamists have been fighting the government and its Ethiopian allies for about two years. They launch near-daily guerrilla strikes in the capital and control most of the south, including a town just 14 kilometres from Mogadishu. Source: ABC online from Reuters
From correspondents in Nairobi | November 19, 2008
SOMALI pirates today released a Hong Kong-flagged ship and its 25 crew seized two months ago, a Kenyan maritime official said.
The MV Great Creation, with 24 Chinese and one Sri Lankan crew, was seized on September 18.
"The pirates released the Great Creation this morning and it is currently sailing to Abu Dhabi," said Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers Association, which monitors shipping in the region and the activities of Somali pirates. Source: AFP
 By Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu | November 19, 2008
AN Indian warship destroyed a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden and gunmen from Somalia seized two more vessels despite a large international naval presence off their lawless country.
The buccaneers have taken a Thai fishing boat, a Greek bulk carrier and a Hong Kong-flagged ship heading to Iran since Saturday's spectacular capture of a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million of oil, the biggest ship hijacked in history.
The explosion of piracy off Somalia this year has driven up insurance costs, made some shipping companies divert around South Africa and prompted an unprecedented military response from NATO, the European Union and others.
"The pirates are sending out a message to the world that 'we can do what we want, we can think the unthinkable, do the unexpected'," Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, said.
The International Maritime Bureau said pirates from the Horn of Africa nation had hijacked a Thai fishing boat with 16 crew. That followed the capture of a Hong Kong-flagged ship carrying grain bound for Iran.
Mwangura's group said a Greek bulk carrier had also been seized, but an official at Greece's Merchant Marine Ministry said that no such incident had been recorded.
The sharp increase in attacks at sea this year off the poor and chaotic country has been fuelled by a growing Islamist insurgency onshore - gun battles broke out again in Mogadishu on Wednesday - and the lure of multi-million-dollar ransoms.
No ransom has been demanded so far for the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, which the pirates seized after dodging international naval patrols in their boldest strike yet.
A spokesman for the owners, Saudi Aramco, said the company hoped to hear from the hijackers later on Wednesday. One Somali website said the attackers were demanding $250 million.
The Sirius Star was seized 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, far beyond the gangs' usual area of operations. It was believed to be anchored near Eyl, a former Somali fishing village that is now a well-defended pirate base. Source: The Australian from Reuters
 Catherine Philp | November 19, 2008
SOMALI pirates struck again overnight, seizing an Iranian cargo ship holding 30,000 tonnes of grain, as the world's governments and navies pronounced themselves powerless against this new threat to global trade.
Saudi pirates have captured the fully laden Saudi oil tanker the Sirius Star.
Admiral Michael Mullen, the US military chief, pronounced himself stunned by the pirates' reach after their capture of the supertanker Sirius Star and its $US100 million ($154 million) cargo.
Commanders from the US Fifth Fleet and from NATO warships in the area said that they would not intervene to retake the vessel.
The Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, the owner of the ship, condemned the hijacking as an "outrageous act" that required international action.
"Piracy, like terrorism, is a disease which is against everybody, and everybody must address it together," Prince Saud al-Faisal said. Arab diplomats would meet in Cairo tomorrow to discuss what could be done in response, Yemeni officials said.
Analysts said, however, that the seizure of the Sirius Star exposed the use of foreign warships as "a sticking plaster" that would not solve the problem.
"Maritime security operations in that area are addressing the symptoms not the causes," said Jason Alderwick, a maritime defence analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Roger Middleton, a Horn of Africa specialist at the Chatham House think-tank, said that the capture was a crucial escalation. "Now that they have shown they are able to seize an enormous ship like this, it is beyond a military solution. You won't fix this without a political solution."
Pirates pulled the 333m supertanker yesterday to a mooring point off Harardhere, on the Somali coast. Farther north, Italian, Greek, Turkish, British, American and Russian frigates and warships were patrolling the Gulf of Aden under a UN mandate.
Even there, pirates hijacked a Hong Kong-registered freighter, the Delight, as it carried 36,000 tonnes of wheat to Bandar Abbas. The hijack, the seventh in 12 days, took place near the Yemeni coast, underscoring the new tactic of evading foreign warships by simply sailing beyond their area of operation.
Operations undertaken by the coalition fleet are fraught with legal difficulties, ranging from restrictive rules of engagement to rights of habeas corpus, as the British Navy discovered when it detained eight pirates after a shootout last week.
Yesterday the detainees were passed on to Kenya, where efforts to prosecute them will be closely watched for precedent.
The limitations of naval action are refocusing international attention on the conflict within Somalia, where the rule of warlords, the lack of a functioning government and resulting anarchy have spawned the piracy epidemic.
The Somali President admitted this weekend that his Western-backed transitional Government was on the brink of collapse, with fighters from the ousted Islamic Courts regime bearing down on Mogadishu.
Pirate attacks have also driven up insurance costs, meaning that consumers will have to pay more to buy goods shipped across the world's seas.
The lawlessness and anarchy that has marked Somalia since the fall of the old Cold War dictator Siad Barre in 1991 proved fertile ground in which a crime almost forgotten in the West has found a new lease of life.
The vast sums involved - pirates holding the Ukrainian arms ship Faina are demanding $US20 million for its return - bring a plentiful supply of cash in the form of illegal taxes and kickbacks for the warring parties to spend on arms.
Analysts say that the Sirius Star is a double-edged sword to its captors: on the one hand, its high-value cargo means that they can demand a massive ransom; on the other, its political and economic importance put them in greater danger of being intercepted.
The pirates are banking on the ship's owners to handle this as a business transaction rather than a geopolitical crisis. Vela International, the ship's operator, has begun negotiations. Source: The Australian
 Catherine Philp | November 18, 2008
PIRATES have seized the biggest booty ever taken on the high seas, capturing a fully-laden Saudi oil supertanker and its multinational crew, among them two British merchant seamen.
The Sirius Star - three times the size of an aircraft carrier and carrying its full complement of two million barrels of crude oil worth at least $US100 million ($154 million) - was hijacked in the early hours of Sunday 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa in Kenya, according to the US Fifth Fleet.
"This is unprecedented," Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the fleet said yesterday. "It's the largest ship that we've seen pirated."
Last night the Sirius Star was heading towards Eyl, a notorious pirate haven on the Somali coast, raising fears of an environmental catastrophe if the pirates run aground in waters far too shallow for the vast supertanker.
Shipping analysts said the cost of sending freight around the world would rise following the attack as a result of higher insurance premiums and an increase in charter rates.
The Sirius Star is the latest of more than 60 vessels to be captured off the Somali coast this year, but the first supertanker. Jitters over the ease with which pirates seized crude equivalent to a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily output sent falling oil prices into reverse. They finished up one dollar per barrel.
Odfjell, one of the largest shipping groups in the world, responded to the attack by suspending its routes through the Gulf of Aden in favour of the longer journey around the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South Africa, raising the prospect that one of the world's busiest trade routes could be sidelined unless global action is taken to combat the pirate menace.
Britain leads a multi-national task force in the area. Last week the Royal Navy was drawn into a shoot-out with a gang attempting to hijack a cargo ship, killing two of the pirates.
But the capture of the Sirius Star hundreds of miles to the south in the Indian Ocean, as it was heading to the US via the Cape of Good Hope, suggests that the Gulf pirates are simply moving into unpatrolled waters or that other pirate groups, recently dormant, have been reawakened.
The supertanker had avoided the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal because it is too big to pass through the canal. It is not only the largest ship to be captured but the farthest from the Somali shoreline.
The US Fifth Fleet declined to say whether military action was being considered to rescue the tanker, which is manned by 23 crew from Croatia, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia in addition to the two Britons.
Shipping experts said a rescue attempt was unlikely because of the extreme danger both to the crew and the ship. Vela International, which operates the tanker for the Saudi state oil company, Saudi Aramco, said it had set up a negotiating team to deal with ransom demands.
"All 25 crew members on board are reported to be safe," the company said. "Vela response teams have been established and are working to ensure the safe release of the crew members and the vessel."
Somalia has lacked a functioning government since the outbreak of civil war in 1991. But the lawlessness that has prevailed since the ousting of the Islamic Courts government in 2007 has spawned the epidemic of piracy.
The gangs' methods vary little, even when taking a 320,000-tonne monster like the Sirius Star. Gunmen typically approach on small speedboats, opening fire on the bridge until the ship's captain submits and allows them on board, usually throwing down a ladder. The average reaction time between spotting the pirates and being boarded is 15 minutes.
Crews are strictly instructed not to resist attack once arms have been employed. Once captured, violence against crew members is rare.
In recent months the pirates' arsenal has grown more deadly, with rocket-propelled grenade-launchers and possibly shoulder-mounted missiles used to threaten the crew.
Pirate groups have hugely extended their reach from the coast with the use of "mother ships", larger vessels from which they launch speedboats after they have identified their prey. While some known mother ships have been identified, other attacks are launched from ordinary dhows, traditional sailing boats hijacked from fishermen.
Negotiations with ships' owners can go on for several months and are clouded in secrecy. At least 12 ships with more than 250 crew members are being held as negotiations continue. Among them is the Ukrainian arms ship Faina, which was captured in August with a cargo of 33 battle tanks, hundreds of crates of Kalashnikovs and ammunition.
Shipping companies have noticed a pattern in which new hijacks occur within days of a ransom settlement, suggesting that the gangs move from one hijack to another as soon as the last is resolved.
"There are never less than 10-12 ships being held," said Giles Knowles, head of maritime security for the Baltic and International Maritime Council, which represents more than 2,700 of the world's shipping companies.
The last week saw the resolution of three ransom settlements, he said, with three more hijacks promptly taking place since Friday. "It would seem there is a cycle."
Terje Storeng, chief executive of Odfjell, said: "We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
"The rerouting will entail extra sailing days and later cargo deliveries. This will incur significant extra cost, but we expect our customers' support and contribution."
Mr Knowles said several companies had already consulted Bimco - an independent international shipping association of shipowners, managers, brokers and agents - on moving to the Cape route, extending the average journey by three weeks, and that he expected more to take Odfjell's lead.
Bimco has called on foreign governments to send more warships in the short term to work under a United Nations mandate to police the Somali coast. In the longer term, it would like a permanent UN coastguard force.
But as long as anarchy reins onshore, little will change at sea. "Historically you've never defeated piracy at sea," Mr Knowles said. "The resolution lies ashore - in Somalia." Source: The Australian
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By David D Laitin and Afyare Abdi Elmi 
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