More Piracy Near Somalia

[davidbfpo]

An Al-Jazeera report from a former pirate port, Eyl, in Somalia's northeast. I know some pirates have been jailed, not seen any stats before:

Farhan is one of more than 200 men from this town who have been hauled off to prisons far from this Horn of Africa country. More than 1,300 young Somali men have been jailed in prisons abroad for piracy since 2005. Most have been sentenced to life in jail.

Rather incredulously the local mayor offers to house those jailed in the town's jail; the reporter doesn't say how long they be there for!

Link:http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fea...12818517.html?

[davidbfpo]

A BBC reporter has been to Puntland, a semi-autonomus region of Somalia and reports on the possibility piracy will resume. He starts with:

In northern Somalia, government officials are warning of a revival of piracy, unless foreign nations - and the naval armada patrolling the coast - do more to help create jobs and security ashore, and to combat illegal fishing at sea.

I know that trawlers operate offshore, some of whom have been kidnapped, but not that the majority are - read on:

Accusing the west of "double standards," the president said foreign navies were only concerned about stopping Somali piracy - which more or less halted in 2012 - and were doing nothing to tackle the "highway robbery" of foreign fishing trawlers [largely Iranian] plundering Somalia's natural resources.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33822635?

[davidbfpo]

The actual title is:

Somali pirates earn new cash by acting as escorts to the fishing boats they once hijacked

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-hijacked.html

There is one would expect a downside to this business:

In late November, an Iranian fishing vessel, the Muhammidi, became the third Iranian ship to be hijacked this year, a pirate gang seizing its 15-strong grew close to the notorious pirate town of Eyl.
It is unclear whether the Iranian hijackings were cases of straighforward piracy or cases where an existing "protection deal" had fallen foul of inter-clan feuding.

[davidbfpo]

Well, well this was done quietly:

NATO has ended its Indian Ocean counter-piracy mission after a sharp fall in attacks, the alliance said on Wednesday, as it shifts resources to deterring Russia in the Black Sea and people smugglers in the Mediterranean.All ships and patrol aircraft have now left the area off the Horn of Africa, where they patrolled since 2009, .....NATO says its "Ocean Shield" operation, as well as European Union and other counter-piracy missions, have significantly reduced attacks, with no ships captured off Somalia since May 2012, down from more than 30 ships at the peak in 2010-11.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/...-defence.html?


The European Union Naval Force (Op Atalanta) is poised to end next month; it only has two ships, one Dutch frigate and a Spanish patrol vessel. Plus a German and a Spanish P3 Orion.


The non-NATO commanded Combined Maritime Forces remain; with thirty-one participants.

[davidbfpo]

Via NYT:

Pirates off the coast of Somalia have seized an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankans on board, in what is believed to be the first hijacking of a large commercial vessel in the region since 2012, officials said on Tuesday...a small tanker delivering fuel...owned by a Panamanian company, Armi Shipping.....

Link:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/world/africa/pirates-somalia.html?

A BBC commentary, which includes this fact:

The vessel and its crew of eight Sri Lankan seafarers ... This brings to 16 the number of seafarers currently being held by Somalia-based pirates, the remaining eight being Iranians.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-39283911

[davidbfpo]

Who moved first then? From WaPo:

Somali pirates who seized a Comoros-flagged oil tanker earlier this week after five years without a major hijacking in the region have released the ship and its crew without conditions, officials said late Thursday. Security official Ahmed Mohamed told The Associated Press the pirates disembarked the ship, which was heading to Bossaso port, the region’s commercial hub, with its eight Sri Lankan crew members aboard.
Mohamed said the release occurred after negotiations by local elders and officials with the pirates, who seized the tanker on Monday.
Naval forces from the semiautonomous state of Puntland and the pirates clashed earlier Thursday after the pirates opened fire.

Link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/somali-official-says-pirates-open-fire-on-local-naval-forces/2017/03/16/8876700a-0a39-11e7-bd19-fd3afa0f7e2a_story.html?

I was puzzled at the references in the reporting to the EU naval mission, as my last post about in them in November 2016 was that it was due to disappear, instead:

On 28 November 2016 the Council of the EU extended the Mandate of Operation ATALANTA until December 2018.

Link:http://eunavfor.eu/mission

Currently it has two frigates, one French, One Spanish; with two P3 Orions, one German and one Spanish. See:http://eunavfor.eu/deployed-units/mpras/#news-tabs

[AdamG]

DJIBOUTI (AP) - Pirates have returned to the waters off Somalia, but the spike in attacks on commercial shipping does not yet constitute a trend, senior U.S. officials said Sunday.
The attacks follow about a five-year respite for the region, where piracy had grown to crisis proportions during the 2010-2012 period, drawing the navies of the United States and other nations into a lengthy campaign against the pirates.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters at a military base in the African nation of Djibouti, near the Gulf of Aden, that even if the piracy problem persists, he would not expect it to require significant involvement by the U.S. military.
At a news conference with Mattis, the commander of U.S. Africa Command said there have been about six pirate attacks on vulnerable commercial ships in the past several weeks.

http://www.wbng.com/story/35219587/u...rs-off-somalia