More Piracy Near Somalia

[davidbfpo]

Taken from: http://www.afrol.com/articles/29528

Four German tourists, including a woman and a child, were kidnapped by pirates as they were sailing off the coast of Somalia's northern region of Puntland on Monday. According to Puntland officials, the tourists were kidnapped near the coastal town of Las Qoray. Earlier this year, Puntland and Somalia clashed over the ownership of the coastal town. The pirates took the tourists hostage and eloped with them into hills around the coastal town. The tourists were abducted after their yacht ran out of fuel. In an effort to free the hostages, local residents have joined Somaliland soldiers to vigorously search for the pirates, Somaliland Vice President, said the Vice President of the self-declared Somaliland, Ahmed Yusuf Yasin.

Slightly different from Reuters: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24275931.htm

davidbfpo

[AdamG]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...-pirates_N.htm

U.S. targets Somali pirates
By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

The U.S. and international military forces are taking more aggressive action off the African coast as bolder and more violent pirates imperil oil shipments and other trade.

The area is a key shipping route for cargo transported to and from the U.S. and elsewhere. In response to pirate attacks, the U.S. has stepped up its patrols to deter them and sometimes intervened to rescue hostages and ships. It also has increased its intelligence-sharing in the area, says Navy Lt. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet in Bahrain, which patrols Middle Eastern and African waters.

The U.S. is "very concerned about the increasing number of acts of piracy and armed robbery" off the Somali coast, he says. Somalia's weak government has admitted it can't control its territorial waters, and Nigeria is fending off a rebel group.

http://www.lloyds.com/News_Centre/Fe...s_21072008.htm

Protecting against the modern-day pirates
Lloyds List
21 July 2008

As levels of piracy rise, so ship owners can expect insurance premiums to go up, with Ken Alston of risk specialist Marsh saying this was an eventuality to be ‘expected’. He added that the scale of the additional premium being charged at the moment is ‘unlikely to have an impact on the consumer’ but if the number of incidences increases, this may change. In May 2008, the Joint War Committee added the Gulf of Aden, located between Somalia and Yemen, to a list of places at high threat of hull war, strikes, terrorism and related perils. It is now comparable to the likes of Iraq in terms of insurance risk, according to the committee.

[davidbfpo]

In the last couple of days there was a new item that the UN Food programme is having to reconsider its shipments to Somalia - as the Dutch Navy will soon cease a deployment which has escorted their (chartered) ships. In view of the pirate threat the UN was re-thinking its options.

Will try to locate story later.

davidbfpo

[AdamG]

Pirates 'putting lives at risk'
4 days ago

The lives of millions of Somalians could be in jeopardy as pirates and robbers threaten aid supplies.

That's the stark warning from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). It said more than half the population of the troubled African country could need urgent food assistance by the end of the year if naval escorts are not found to protect food ships soon.

France, Denmark and the Netherlands were providing escorts but the WFP has received no further commitment from them since June.


http://ukpress.google.com/article/AL...eFxVmnhLfUy0sg

[Entropy]

I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but here you can get some pretty cool maps showing Somalia piracy.

[Stan]

Just finished watching the evening news where Estonian midshipman Ardo Kalle returned home and indicated that the scrawny pirates were ranked by the weapons they carried.

"You could tell who were in charge as they were armed with Russian Kalashnikovs versus those with Chinese-made AKs"

According to Ardo, the 40-day ordeal aboard the German cargo vessel Lehmann Timber ended shy of the one million ransom, as the food on board had long run out, and even the pirates wanted out !

Jeez, go figure

[MattC86]

In the last couple of days there was a new item that the UN Food programme is having to reconsider its shipments to Somalia - as the Dutch Navy will soon cease a deployment which has escorted their (chartered) ships. In view of the pirate threat the UN was re-thinking its options.

Will try to locate story later.

davidbfpo

Why is the UN-sponsored NATO Horn of Africa patrol not taking over the escort of these shipments? Last I checked it was a full strength Surface Action Group on station there. . .

Regards,

Matt

[AdamG]

Last I checked it was a full strength Surface Action Group on station there. . .

10 ships, lotta ocean?

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimesc...5-53d5c289f765

To deter such crimes, Task Force 150, led by Commodore Bob Davidson, who uses the Iroquois as his flagship, includes a changing cast of warships from the United States, five European countries and Pakistan.

It now maintains a more-or-less permanent naval presence between the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden.

But this is only a small part of the Task Force's area, which covers 2.5 million square miles of ocean from the southern end of the Suez Canal to Kenya's border with Tanzania, east to the Seychelles and then north to Pakistan..

[Render]

Regarding this ongoing and escalating situation, I'm going to cut-n-paste a comment of mine from Bill Roggio's Long War Journal...

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...rrounds_hi.php

Something I was wondering back when the Russian tug was hijacked...

What are the odds that the MV Iran Deyanat wasn't really hijacked?

It's international crewmembers would have to be kept in the dark or otherwise be part of the operation, but that's not beyond the realm of possibility. The "chemical weapons" story serves as a good cover for keeping less well equipped investigaters from close inspection while the actual cargo, (in this hypothosis light infantry arms and ammo), is unloaded.

Is there any known connection between the group of pirates that took MV Iran Deyanat and the Somali militia that sent 300 to 700 some odd volunteers to Lebanon in 2006?

Is there any known connection between MV Iran Deyanat and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?

Are these pirates just dumber then the usual 21st century pirate types? Like the taking of the Russian tug, this particular act of piracy just smells odd...

PRIVATEER,
R

[Rex Brynen]

Is there any known connection between the group of pirates that took MV Iran Deyanat and the Somali militia that sent 300 to 700 some odd volunteers to Lebanon in 2006?

While I know "information" to this effect is reported in the October 2006 UN Monitoring Group report on Somalia, I'm aware of no credible evidence that it took place. Largely numbers of armed Somalis operating in Lebanon would have stuck out like a sore thumb (in fact, for those who know Lebanon its a rather comical image), and done Hizbullah far more harm than good.