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Pirates! Activity Around the world
Somali Pirates Are Said to Die in Fight on Ukrainian Ship
By Hamsa Omar and Gregory Viscusi
Enlarge Image/Details
Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Three Somali pirates died in a shootout as they argued over how to deal with a hijacked Ukrainian ship carrying a cargo of battle tanks, a maritime official said. Pirates contacted onboard the ship denied there had been a fight.
Pirates seized the Faina, a Belize-flagged vessel with a crew of 17 Ukrainians, three Russians and one Latvian, on Sept. 25. It is carrying at least 30 Soviet-designed T-72 tanks to Kenya. U.S. warships have surrounded the boat, now anchored off the Somali port of Hobyo, to prevent the cargo being unloaded.
U.S. naval officers don't have independent confirmation of a shootout, though they are aware of reports of one, Lieutenant Nate Christensen said by telephone from the U.S. 5th Fleet base in Bahrain.
``Misunderstanding between moderate and radical pirates on board increased last night until they opened fire between them, leaving three of them dead,'' Andrew Mwangura, head of the Nairobi-based Seafarers Assistance Program, said by telephone.
A pirate on board, who gave his name as Da'ud Elmi Adde and who said he's deputy spokesman, denied Mwangura's claims. ``We have only one commander and we take the orders from him,'' Adde said. ``There is not a little bit of difference between us.''
Adde said Sugale Ali Omar, who has been the pirates' onboard spokesman so far, was unavailable.
Crew Death
Omar yesterday confirmed that a crew member had died from hypertension. Russian state broadcaster Vesti-24 reported on its Web Site that it was the Russian captain, Vladimir Kolobkov.
The U.S. 5th Fleet says it has several ships in the vicinity of the Faina. The only one it has identified is the destroyer USS Howard.
``We will maintain a vigilant watch over the ship and remain on station while negotiations take place,'' Rear Admiral Kendall Card, Task Force Commander, said in a statement. ``Our goal is to ensure the safety of the crew, to not allow off- loading of dangerous cargo and to make certain Faina can return to legitimate shipping.''
The U.S. Navy is allowing small boats to bring food and other supplies from land.
Omar, the pirates' spokesman, yesterday said they are demanding a $20 million ransom for the boat and its cargo.
The pirates claim the tanks are intended for clients in southern Sudan, Agence France-Presse reported. Kenyan Defense Ministry spokesman Bogita Ongeri yesterday said the tanks are for Kenya's own army, AFP said.
Military Intervention
Attacks by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia have led shipping companies to ask for military intervention by the United Nations and to warn that they may start routing ships around Africa, increasing costs and risking rougher seas. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose commandos rescued hostages and captured pirates in a Sept. 15 raid, also called for an international response.
Ships using the Suez Canal to travel between Europe and Asia must pass through the Gulf of Aden. In the first half of this year, 21,080 vessels used the Egyptian canal, a 10th of the world's seaborne trade. Somali pirates have attacked about 60 ships so far this year.
A group of shipping associations and a seamen's trade union yesterday released a joint statement criticizing Western navies for not protecting shipping.
``The pirates are now attacking ships on a daily basis with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades, and are currently holding over 200 seafarers hostage,'' the group said on the International Transport Workers' Federation Web site. ``The pirates are operating with impunity, and governments stand idly by. If civil aircraft were being hijacked on a daily basis, the response of governments would be very different.''
Foreign Navies
The U.S., France, U.K., Canada, Malaysia and Denmark have naval ships in the area to support military operations in Afghanistan and to protect humanitarian food supplies sent to parts of Somalia controlled by the official Somali government. Most pirates operate out of the breakaway Puntland region.
A Russian warship, the Neustrashimy, or Intrepid, is also en route to the area. No French naval ships are currently in the immediate vicinity, the French navy said.
Christensen wouldn't say if any of the U.S. ships have Special Forces on board. French commandos two weeks ago freed a French yacht that had been taken by Somali pirates, killing one of them, and in April captured six pirates on land and recuperated some ransom money after another French yacht had been hijacked and then released.
``Taking out a boat in high seas is one of the most difficult operations,'' Fred Burton, vice president for counter- terrorism and corporate security at risk management company Stratfor, said in a telephone interview. ``Obviously, the smaller the boat'' to be rescued, ``the less difficult it is.''
To contact the reporters on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@Bloomberg.net; Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via the Johannesburg newsroom at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: September 30, 2008 07:24 EDT
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Re: Pirates!
Somali pirates a scourge to ships in Gulf of Aden
U.S. 'copters buzz seized boat with Soviet weapons as world takes steps to safeguard key trade route
Sep 30, 2008 04:30 AM
Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post
ABOARD A YEMENI COAST GUARD VESSEL–Somali pirates plying the Gulf of Aden in speedboats equipped with grenade launchers and scaling ladders have launched what the maritime industry calls the biggest surge of piracy in modern times, sending the world's navies scrambling to protect the main water route from Asia and the Middle East to Europe.
Pirates from the failed African state of Somalia have attacked at least 61 ships in and around the Gulf of Aden this year, 17 of them in the first two weeks of September alone, according to the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting centre in Malaysia.
Yesterday, U.S. helicopters buzzed a Ukrainian cargo ship, hijacked last Thursday. U.S. warships also continued to circle the ship, carrying 33 Soviet-designed tanks and other weapons, which officials fear could wind up in the hands of Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.
Late last week, Somali pirates were also holding 14 other ships with a total of more than 300 crew members, demanding ransoms of $1 million or more per ship.
"In my time here, I must say, this is the most concentrated period of destabilizing activity I have seen in the Gulf of Aden," said British Commodore Keith Winstanley, deputy commander of the Combined Maritime Forces, whose 20-member states have confronted the pirates repeatedly since mid-August.
At least 22,000 ships pass each year through the Gulf of Aden.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been a leader in efforts to rally a coalition against the pirates, after twice sending French commandos this year to rescue French yachts captured in the Gulf of Aden.
Overtaken by hijackers armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, crews seldom try to fight off the pirates.
"Between the time you see them and the time they control the ship, it takes 15 minutes, maximum," said Patrick Marchesseau, captain of the French yacht Le Ponant, hijacked in April with its 30 crew members in the Gulf of Aden.
Marchesseau ordered his crew to use the fire hose against the pirates, he recounted by telephone from France. But the crew surrendered when the pirates started shooting.
Marchesseau said the hijackers were Somali men, who claimed they were not religious extremists and only wanted money. The crew was released after a $1 million ransom was paid.
France has been the most aggressive in confronting the pirates, sending helicopter gunships and warships to Somalia after the hijackings of the two yachts. After hijackers released Le Ponant's crew, commandos recovered part of the ransom and captured six alleged pirates. The French have also killed at least one pirate.
Last week in Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia, a commander of Yemen's coast guard thought of the big weapons and fast ships the Somali pirates were amassing, and he worried.
"The French know how to deal with them, killing one of them. This is very nice," said Lotf Baraty.
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Re: Pirates!
US says 3 Somali pirates believed killed in argument aboard hijacked ship
1 hour ago
WASHINGTON — A U.S. defence official says three pirates are believed to have been killed in a gunfight among themselves on the ship they hijacked off Somalia's coast.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was an argument among the pirates that escalated into a shootout.
He refused to elaborate.
Several U.S. ships have been watching the Ukrainian-operated cargo ship, hijacked last week with a cargo of Russian-designed tanks and other weapons.
Officials believe several dozen pirates are holding the ship.
The U.S. navy has surrounded the vessel with a half dozen ships in hopes of preventing the pirates from taking any of the weapons ashore.
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Re: Pirates!
Pirates release 14 Filipinos from 2 Malaysian tankers hijacked in Somalia
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 07:06 PM
Pirates have released 14 Filipinos from among the 79 crewmen of two Malaysian tankers hijacked near Somalia in exchange for a ransom.
Philippine Ambassador to Malaysia Victoriano Lecaros confirmed the release of nine Filipino crewmembers and the remains of Jayson Dumagat, whose body was placed in the cold storage of M/V Bunga Melati 2, which were seized by Somali pirates last Aug. 19.
The release came two days after Somali pirates freed another Malaysian tanker with some Filipino crewmembers.
Malaysian shipping line MISC Berhad chairman Hassan Marican said a ransom was paid for both vessels but declined to reveal the amount. All 79 crew, including the 14 Filipinos, on both ships are safe but are traumatized and will undergo counseling, he said.
Lecaros identified nine Filipino seamen released as Romulo Buhayang, Ariel Objaan, Rodolfo Buinanao Jr., Benito Adecer, Macario Pacione III, Ronan Maranan, Rading Maguan, Leo Andrew Sitjar, and Eleanor Madriga.
DFA spokesman Claro Cristobal said the DFA is coordinating with MISC Berhad to repatriate the nine Filipino crewmen and the remains of Dumagat. -- Pia Lee-Brago
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Re: Pirates!
Somali pirates remain at large on Ukrainian cargo ship
Last Updated: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 | 9:28 AM ET Comments0Recommend3
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/ph...-240-56003.jpgSomali pirates in small boats are seen alongside the hijacked cargo ship Faina in this picture released by U.S. Navy on Sunday. (U.S. Navy/Associated Press)
Somali pirates who seized a Ukrainian ship laden with military hardware last week remained at large on Tuesday, even as they denied reports that three of their own were killed in a shootout aboard the ship.
Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program said there was an unconfirmed report that three Somali pirates were killed Monday night in a dispute over whether to surrender to U.S. warships that have surrounded the ship.
Pentagon officials later verified the report.
But a spokesman for the pirates insisted there was no truth to the account.
"We didn't dispute over a single thing, let alone have a shootout," pirate spokesman Sugule Ali told the Associated Press by satellite phone.
The 21-person crew aboard the ship includes 17 Ukrainians, three Russians and a Latvian. One of the crewmembers died on Sunday of an apparent heart attack, reported the Associated Press.
The pirates have demanded a $20-million US ransom for the cargo ship Faina and its cargo of 33 Soviet-designed tanks and weapons, which they hijacked on Sept. 25 as it was passing the Gulf of Aden off the Indian Ocean en route to the Kenyan port of Mombasa. The gulf is one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
The San Diego-based USS guided missile destroyer Howard has been watching the pirate ship for several days and has spoken to the pirates and crew by radio.
On Monday, U.S. naval officials said several other U.S. ships and helicopters had joined the watch, but declined to give details. Russia has also dispatched a warship to the area, but it will take about a week to get there.
Fears of arms landing in militant hands
The U.S. fears the armaments aboard the ship could end up with al-Qaeda-linked Islamic militants in Somalia if they are allowed to be unloaded in the country. Militants there have led an insurgency against the shaky, U.N.-backed Somali transitional government since late 2006, when the Islamists were driven out after six months in power.
U.S. Navy officials said they have allowed the pirates to resupply the ship with food and water, but not to unload any of its military cargo.
"Our goal is to ensure the safety of the crew, to not allow off-loading of dangerous cargo and to make certain Faina can return to legitimate shipping," said Rear Adm. Kendall Card, commander of the task force monitoring the ship.
The pirates, in an interview with the New York Times, said they were only interested in money and had no knowledge that the ship contained an estimated $30 million US of weaponry.
Agence France-Presse quoted Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet, as saying the armaments were bound for Sudan. That claim has been denied by Sudanese, Ukrainian and Kenyan officials.
Kenya has insisted since the start of the standoff the arms were being sent to them as part of a deal with the Ukraine government.
Piracy has become a lucrative criminal racket in impoverished Somalia, bringing in tens of millions of dollars a year in ransom. There have been 24 reported attacks in Somalia this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
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Re: Pirates!
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Somali pirates on arms ship celebrate Muslim feast
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN – 2 hours ago
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — The standoff in the Indian Ocean over a ship laden with tanks and weapons entered a sixth day Tuesday, with pirates claiming they were celebrating the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr despite being surrounded by American warships and helicopters.
No solution to their $20 million ransom demand for the Ukrainian cargo ship Faina was yet in sight.
"We are happy on the ship and we are celebrating Eid," pirate spokesman Sugule Ali told The Associated Press by satellite phone. "Nothing has changed."
Ali did not say whether the ship's 21-member crew, which includes Ukrainians, Russians and a Latvian, would be included in the feast that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. One crew member has died, of an apparent heart attack.
There were unconfirmed reports Tuesday of shootings on the ship. Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program said there was a report that three Somali pirates were killed Monday night in a dispute over whether to surrender, but he said he had not spoken to any witnesses.
Pirate spokesman Sugule Ali denied the claim Tuesday, telling AP, "We didn't dispute over a single thing, let alone have a shootout."
There was no way to independently verify either account. The U.S. 5th Fleet also said it had no new information to report on the standoff Tuesday morning.
Elsewhere in Somalia, pirates freed a Malaysian tanker Tuesday after a ransom was paid, according to a Malaysian shipping company.
The blue-and-white Ukrainian ship Faina has been buzzed by American helicopters since Sunday. Pirates hijacked the Faina and its cargo of 33 Soviet-designed tanks and weapons Thursday while the ship was passing through the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, en route to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
Ali said the vessel was surrounded by four warships but he could not identify where the ships were from. The San Diego-based USS guided missile destroyer Howard has been watching the pirate ship for several days and has spoken the pirates and crew by radio.
On Monday, U.S. naval officials said several other American ships had joined the watch, but declined to give details.
U.S. Navy officials said they have allowed the pirates to resupply the ship with food and water, but not to unload any of its military cargo, which included T-72 tanks, ammunition, and heavy weapons that U.S. Defense officials have said included rocket launchers.
The U.S. fears the armaments may end up with al-Qaida-linked Islamic militants who have been fighting an insurgency against the shaky, U.N.-backed Somali transitional government since late 2006, when the Islamists were driven out after six months in power. More than 9,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the Iraq-style insurgency.
"Our goal is to ensure the safety of the crew, to not allow off-loading of dangerous cargo and to make certain Faina can return to legitimate shipping," said Rear Adm. Kendall Card, commander of the task force monitoring the ship.
Russia has also dispatched a warship to the area, but it will take about a week to get there.
American military officials and diplomats say the weapons are destined for southern Sudan.
The oil-rich south was promised a referendum in 2011 on independence from the rest of Sudan as part of a peace deal that ended a 21-year civil war three years ago. Southern Sudanese officials said they were "surprised" to hear reports that the tanks and arms were destined for them.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian shipping line MISC Berhad said Tuesday that Somalia pirates released the seized palm oil tanker, MT Bunga Melati 2, on Monday, two days after its first vessel was released.
Chairman Hassan Marican said a ransom was paid for both vessels but declined to reveal the amount. All 79 crew on both ships are safe but were traumatized and will undergo counseling, he said.
Piracy has become a lucrative criminal racket in impoverished Somalia, bringing in tens of millions of dollars a year in ransom. There have been 24 reported attacks in Somalia this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
Most pirate attacks occur in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, to the north of Somalia. But recently pirates have been targeting Indian Ocean waters off eastern Somalia.
In all, 62 ships have been attacked in the notorious African waters this year. A total of 26 ships were hijacked, and 12 remain in the hands of the pirates along with more than 200 crew members.
International warships are patrolling the area and have created a special security corridor under a U.S.-led initiative, but attacks have not abated.
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Associated Press writers Barbara Surk in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.
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Web site for USS Howard:
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Re: Pirates!
Mystery surrounds hijacked Iranian ship
By Nick GraceSeptember 22, 2008 12:20 PM
Written by Nick Grace & Abdiweli Ali, Ph.D.
A tense standoff is underway in northeastern Somalia between pirates, Somali authorities, and Iran over a suspicious merchant vessel and its mysterious cargo. Hijacked late last month in the Gulf of Aden, the MV Iran Deyanat remains moored offshore in Somali waters and inaccessible for inspection. Its declared cargo consists of minerals and industrial products, however, Somali and regional officials directly involved in the negotiations over the ship and who spoke to The Long War Journal are convinced that it was heading to Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia's Islamist insurgents.
It was business as usual when speedboats surrounded the MV Iran Deyanat on August 21. The 44468 dead weight tonnage bulk carrier was pushing towards the Suez and had just entered the Gulf of Aden - dangerous waters where instability, greed and no-questions-asked ransom payments have led to a recent surge in piracy. Steaming past the Horn of Africa, 82 nautical miles southeast of al-Makalla in Yemen, the ship was a prize for the taking. It would bring hundreds of thousands of dollars - possibly millions - to the Somalia-based crime syndicate. The captain was defenseless against the 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades blocking his passage. He had little choice other than to turn his ship over to them. What the pirates were not banking on, however, was that this was no ordinary ship.
The MV Iran Deyanat is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) - a state-owned company run by the Iranian military that was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on September 10, shortly after the ship's hijacking. According to the U.S. Government, the company regularly falsifies shipping documents in order to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments to avoid the attention of shipping authorities, and employs the use of cover entities to circumvent United Nations sanctions to facilitate weapons proliferation for the Iranian Ministry of Defense.
The MV Iran Deyanat set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July and, according to its manifest, planned to travel to Rotterdam, where it would unload 42,500 tons of iron ore and "industrial products" purchased by a German client. Its arrival in the Gulf of Aden, Somali officials tell The Long War Journal, was suspiciously early. According to a publicly available status report on the IRISL Web site, the ship reached the Gulf on August 20 and was scheduled to reach the Suez Canal on August 27 - a seven day journey. "Depending on the speed of the ship," Puntland Minister of Ports Ahmed Siad Nur said in a phone interview on Saturday, "it should take between 4 and 5 days to reach Suez."
Suspicion has also been cast on the ship's crew, half of which is almost entirely staffed by Iranians - a large percentage of Iranian nationals for a standard merchant vessel. Somali officials say that the ship has a crew of 29 men, including a Pakistani captain, an Iranian engineer, 13 other Iranians, 3 Indians, 2 Filipinos, and 10 Eastern Europeans, possibly Croatian.
The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died. "Yes, some of them have died. I do not know exactly how many but the information that I am getting is that some of them have died," Andrew Mwangura, Director of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, said Friday when reached by phone in Mombasa.
News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. Osman also confirmed to The Long War Journal that during the six days he negotiated with the pirates members of the syndicate had become sick and died. "That ship is unusual," he said. "It is not carrying a normal shipment."
The delegation faced a tense situation in Eyl, Osman recounts. The syndicate had demanded a $9 million ransom for 10 ships that were in its possession and refused permission to inspect the Iranian vessel. At one point, he said, the pirates threatened to "blow up" the MV Iran Deyanat if authorities tried to inspect it with force. A committee of delegate members and Eyl city officials was formed to negotiate directly with the pirates in order to defuse the situation.
Once in direct contact, the pirates told Osman that they had attempted to inspect the ship's seven cargo containers after they developed health complications but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the "access codes" and could not open them. The delegation secured contact with the captain and the engineer by cell phone and demanded to know the nature of the cargo, however, Osman says that "they were saying different things to different people." Initially they said that the cargo contained "crude oil" but then claimed it contained "minerals."
"The secrecy is not clear to us," Mwangura said about the cargo. "Our sources say it contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals." IRISL has flatly denied the ship is carrying a "dangerous consignment" and has threatened legal action against Mwangura.
The syndicate set the ship's ransom at $2 million and the Iranian government provided $200,000 to a local broker "to facilitate the exchange." Iran refutes that it agreed to the price and has paid any money to the pirates. Nevertheless, after sanctions were applied to IRISL on September 10, Osman says, the Iranians told the pirates that the deal was off. "They told the pirates that they could not come because of the presence of the U.S. Navy." The region is patrolled by the multinational Combined Taskforce 150, which includes ships from the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.
In a strange twist, the Iranian press claims that the U.S. has offered to pay a $7 million bribe to the pirates to "receive entry permission and search the vessel." Officials in the Pentagon and the Department of State approached for this story refused to comment on the situation. Somali officials would also not comment on any direct U.S. involvement but one high-level official in the Puntland government told The Long War Journal "I can say the ship is of interest to a lot of people, including Puntland."
The exact nature of the cargo remains a mystery but officials in Puntland and Baidoa are convinced the ship was carrying weapons to Eritrea for Islamist insurgents. "We cannot inspect the cargo yet," Osman said, "but we are sure that it is weapons."
"Puntland requested the pirates two weeks ago to hand over this Iranian ship, saying that it is carrying weapons to Eritrea," Puntland Fisheries Minister Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf told Reuters. "I have seen food and other odd items on the ship but I do not know what is hidden underneath."
Iran's involvement in the conflict in Somalia on behalf of Islamist insurgents is well documented. In 2006, Iran flouted arms embargos and provided sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), intelligence sources told The Long War Journal, including SA-7 Strella and SA-18 Igla MANPADS - shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles - as well as AT-3 Sagger antitank missiles.
A report issued by the United Nations in 2006 states that weapons were transferred to Somalia through Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which also absorbed a contingent of 700 Islamist fighters from Somalia during Hezbollah's war with Israel. The report also states that Iran provided support for Islamist training camps inside Somalia and had sent two emissaries to negotiate with the ICU for access to Somalia's uranium mines.
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Re: Pirates!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rick Donaldson
"We didn't dispute over a single thing, let alone have a shootout," pirate spokesman Sugule Ali told the Associated Press by satellite phone.
Ok, something about that is just funny! :rofl2:
I tell you what I'd like to do... I'd like to be a privateer and take care of the pirates! That would be fun.
Except the Iranian ship. The pirates can keep that one. Or maybe we could sink it.
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Re: Pirates Activity Around the world
Editorial: Fighting piracy in high seas
30 September 2008 |
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THE latest incident of piracy off the coast of Somalia with a Ukrainian vessel carrying tanks and other military equipment seized by Somali pirates has brought the issue to a head — not before time, although the interest is largely because of the cargo. Fears that it might fall into terrorist hands have spurred the navies of several countries, including both the US and Russia, into action.
Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea has to be dealt with once and for all. It is obviously of special concern to Saudi Arabia. Shipping between Jeddah, Yanbo and Jizan and points east or between the Arabian Gulf and the Suez Canal are at risk. In the case of Jizan, the multibillion riyal plans for its development are dependent on its proximity to international maritime routes; those routes have to be safe. The waters are one of the world’s main trade arteries. Each year, 48,000 ships sail through them. All are potential targets. There has already been a massive surge in attacks this year — at least 60, with 14 vessels and over 350 crew now in pirate hands. The threat is going to worsen unless decisive action is taken. The pirates, working from large mother ships, are increasingly sophisticated and striking further afield all the time.
One of the reasons why there has been a surge is that ship and cargo owners as well as governments have paid ransoms. It has encouraged the pirates. They operate with impunity from unofficial autonomous region of Puntland, where the Somali government’s writ does not extend and where they are rumored to be backed by key figures in the local administration — and the pickings are rich. The going rate was a million dollars a boat, but like the attacks, it is rising; last month two million dollars was paid for two German sailors; the Ukrainian ship with its sensitive cargo produced an initial demand for $35 million, reduced then to $20 million.
There is thought to be another reason for the surge. It is that Islamist insurgents in Somalia have become involved, using the money to fund their campaign.
Usually, piracy is the concern of countries bordering the waters affected. Somalia is in no state to deal with the issue; Yemen does not have the resources, nor does Djibouti, Sudan or Kenya. This has to be an international issue. Major Western naval powers — the Americans, the British and the French — have, for strategic purposes, been patrolling the area but on an ad-hoc basis, reacting to attacks rather than being proactive, trying to destroy the pirates and their bases. It can be done. In April, French commandoes carried out a raid on a village in Puntland to freed 30 captured crewmembers of a French yacht; six pirates were seized and sent to France for trial. Earlier this month, French commandoes again were in action, freeing two French sailors and capturing another six pirates. It was France looking after its own; after the second rescue, President Sarkozy pointedly called on other nations to follow the French example. That is all very well for those with large navies, but what about those who do not have such maritime muscle?
The scourge requires tough, coordinated action. It cannot be a NATO operation; it would antagonize the Russians and others. It has to be UN authority. So far its response has been insufficient. In June, the Security Council approved incursions into Somali waters to combat piracy. But despite both this and action by some foreign navies, attacks continue to soar. The UN regularly establishes peacekeeping forces for action on land to reimpose law and order. But there has never been a specifically UN naval force. Why not now? The situation certainly merits it.
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Re: Pirates!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ryan Ruck
Ok, something about that is just funny! :rofl2:
I tell you what I'd like to do... I'd like to be a privateer and take care of the pirates! That would be fun.
Except the Iranian ship. The pirates can keep that one. Or maybe we could sink it.
I hope we sink it. On the other hand, I hope the crew gets off the ship alive first.
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Re: Pirates Activity Around the world
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Editorial: The macho reaction to piracy and the massacre in Somalia capital
30 Sep 30, 2008 - 6:56:27 AM
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SUNDAY EDITORIAL | In today's world of injustice and arrogance, it seems money is more valuable than human life.
It is two stories in one, intricately interwoven at the root and takes place on the world stage. The setting is a familiar name: Somalia…that impoverished East African country from the Hollywood hit "Black Hawk Down." Both stories are agonizingly thrilling and begin and end with lawlessness.
As insurgents began capturing major towns on ground, pirates doubled their attacks on merchant ships at sea. The international community was beset with loud voices calling for immediate anti-piracy action, at the UN-level. The French government took lead in introducing a UN resolution to combat Somalia’s pirates.
But even before the passing of any resolutions, French commandos attacked the pirates in April and September this year, killing at least two suspected pirates and while arresting a total of 12 other suspects. The suspects are facing charges in a French court. Certainly, the French government's actions have been welcomed in international circles as the correct move against pirate gangs who have profited from millions in ransom cash this year. But in other circles, silent questions linger as to France's legitimacy to grab Somali citizens from Somali soil.
Ah, the excruciating pains of lawlessness! After nearly 18 years of conflict, Somalia has literally disappeared from the international diplomatic scene as a functioning government that protects its own citizens – both at home and aboard. The numbers from Somalia are unbearably sorrowful: since December 2006, when the Ethiopian army invaded the country, at least 9,500 civilians have been killed in conflict, 860,000 civilians displaced by the war, while nearly 3 million people are in need of food assistance.
Where is the macho reaction to the suffering of the Somali masses? Who speaks for the faceless thousands stuck between Ethiopian tanks and insurgent mortars? Where are the UN resolutions demanding an international political and military effort to end one of Africa's longest-running conflicts ever?
When hungry gangs of young men storm foreign ships and demand ransom, the reaction is quick and effective, because millions of dollars are at stake. But the suffering civilians deserve lip-service and the occasional Canadian warship helping deliver food aid. In today's world of injustice and arrogance, it seems money is more valuable than human life.
Of the two stories – the tragedy of war and the pirate attacks – international attention and condemnation is focused on the wrong target. Piracy is a byproduct of lawlessness, not the other way around. And it is a lawlessness that many countries in the West and the Middle East are happy to watch continue in Somalia, by supporting rival factions who have no national vision or goals to save Somalis from the present quagmire. Finding a lasting political solution on the ground is an effective tool against piracy, but militarizing the pirate problem will be counterproductive and dangerous.
And for the Somalis themselves, the day's gruesome reality must be faced with self-observation and determined insight. We have literally reduced ourselves into nonexistence. Somali citizens are getting butchered in South Africa. Other Somalis fleeing war and poverty are dying of thirst in the Libyan Desert or drowning in the Gulf of Aden. And even those "lucky" Somalis who made it to the West are facing legal and cultural problems, and the challenge of raising Muslim children in an atheistic world fuelled by the capitalist drive to satisfy a boundless appetite.
There is nothing better than home, better than Somalia. The clan politicians we love to admire are no prophets – unless, of course, they are the prophets of self-destruction. These men are responsible for Somali boys joining armed gangs, by sea or on land. These men destroyed the young generation's rights to an education; these criminal leaders' worst fear is an educated public, so they keep Somalis in the dark by using foreign elements whose shadowy agendas remain in public view.
The blind search for "clan interests" have catapulted Somalia into the era of foreign occupation and brought our proud, resilient people to a level unimagined in history. As Somalis, we can no longer afford to wait for the world to react. We must react on our own – against warlords and terrorists, against Ethiopian troops and Arab financers. We must react to save Somalia. If not today, tomorrow is already too late.
Garowe Online Editorial, editorial@garoweonline.com
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Re: Pirates Activity Around the world
Hijacked ship linked to Sudan
30 Sep 30, 2008 - 12:25:25 AM
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A pirate attack on a ship transporting military tanks off the coast of Somalia has connected two of Africa's worst conflict zones by throwing a spotlight on the south Sudanese army's rearmament programme.
Kenya has said the 33 Russian-made tanks on board the hijacked vessel were destined for its own armed forces, but its claims have been challenged by several sources who said they were to be transported through Kenya to south Sudan.
Last week's seizure of the Ukraine-registered ship, the MV Faina, was the most brazen attack yet by pirates who have this year made the Gulf of Aden and the seas around Somalia the most dangerous in the world.
The piracy is fuelled by the anarchy in Somalia, a failed state where criminality is thriving as a weak interim government struggles to establish its authority.
The ability of pirates to halt a big intercontinental shipment of military hardware has highlighted the potential for the instability in Somalia to have broader international consequences.
Andrew Mwangura, of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Programme, which monitors piracy in the region, said the pirates claimed to have found documents showing the T-72 tanks were destined for south Sudan. They have demanded a ransom of $20m (€14bn, £11bn) for the ship, its cargo and crew.
An African military official working in south Sudan and a government adviser in Khartoum said the south was in the midst of a big rearmament programme ahead of an election next year before independence due in 2011.
South Sudanese rebels signed a peace deal with the Khartoum government in 2005 after decades of civil war.
But some members of the southern government fear that because the south has most of Sudan's oil reserves the north will not allow it to secede.
Kenya, which helped broker the 2005 peace deal, has denied it is an arms conduit. A spokesman for SPLA also denied any link to the tanks. But Byor Ajang, an army officer, was quoted by Sudanese radio saying the army had the right to import weapons from anywhere without the consent of the government in the north.
A logistics expert in Kenya said that earlier this year another large shipment of tanks had been sent by rail from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to the town of Eldoret, then transported north by road into south Sudan.
For a second day yesterday several US warships were monitoring activity on the hijacked boat, which was anchored several miles off the Somali coast. The US navy released photographs showing new pirates arriving in speedboats to reinforce their allies on the ship.
"We are not going to allow the offloading of any cargo from the ship," said a spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet.
Source: Financial Times (UK)
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Re: Pirates Activity Around the world
Somalia | http://www.garoweonline.com/artman/images/printer.png | http://www.garoweonline.com/artman/images/email_go.png |
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Somali pirates release Japanese ship
28 Sep 28, 2008 - 2:42:49 PM
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BOSSASO, Somalia (Reuters) - Somali pirates released a Japanese ship and its 21-member crew on Friday after a $2 million ransom was paid three months after it was captured off the coast of the lawless country, a regional official said.
"We understand that the Japanese ship, MV Stella Maris which had been hijacked on July 20, was released today after $2 million was paid," Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf, assistant minister for fisheries in Somalia's semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, told Reuters.
Hijackings are common in Somalia's unpatrolled waters, where pirates normally treat their hostages well in anticipation of hefty ransoms.
Piracy has made the Gulf of Aden, a sea route used by about 20,000 vessels a year, one of the world's most dangerous waterways.
In the latest attack, pirates hijacked a Ukrainian vessel carrying more than 30 tanks and other military equipment bound for the Kenyan port of Mombasa, a significant haul for the pirates. The ship had 21 crew.
Yusuf said the pirates were expected to leave the Panamanian flagged Stella Maris on Friday but were still on board.
"The pirates are still on board because they do not want to be bombed or captured," he said, adding that several vehicles had been seen driving towards Garad, where the ship was held, to transport the pirates.
Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers Assistance Programme told Reuters that another ship was due to be released over the weekend. He did not give further details.
Pirates are currently holding about a dozen vessels and more then 200 crew members.
An Islamist insurgence in the south of Somalia, which has not had a functioning government for 17 years, has made it difficult for the struggling interim government to police the waters. Russia said on Friday it was sending a warship to the region to protect Russian ships and citizens.
Source: Reuters
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Re: Pirates!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ryan Ruck
.... Except the Iranian ship. The pirates can keep that one. Or maybe we could sink it.
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. "
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Re: Pirates Activity Around the world
Pirates claim weapons were for Sudan
Xan Rice in Nairobi
October 1, 2008
THE stand-off between Somali pirates and several heavily armed US warships continued yesterday as controversy grew over the original destination for the hijacked ship's cargo of weapons.
The pirates said the weapons had been headed for Sudan and not Kenya, and denied three of their own were killed in a shootout.
The Ukrainian vessel, the Faina, which was destined for Mombasa, Kenya, has 33 tanks and other weaponry and has been anchored near Hobyo on Somalia's east coast after pirates seized it last Thursday.
"We are confirming that these weapons do not belong to the Government of Kenya but belong to southern Sudan," a spokesman for the pirates, Sugule Ali, said over a satellite phone."But whoever is the weapons' owner is not our problem, our problem is the $US20 million [$24 million]," he said, referring to their ransom demand.
Several ships from the Gulf-based US Fifth Fleet are within sight of the Faina. A Russian warship is also in the vicinity. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet, has also said the weaponry was destined for a client in Sudan. Kiev and Nairobi have denied that claim, as did a Sudanese army spokesman.
But the speed of the international reaction shows the concern the hardware, which includes rocket-propelled grenades, could be used in the Islamist-led insurgency against Somalia's Government forces and occupying Ethiopian troops.
The Faina's 21-man crew included 17 Ukrainians and three Russians. One of the Russians is said to have since died of an illness.
Kenya has insisted the cargo was for its military. But in a statement that surprised local security analysts, Ukraine's Government said on Friday it delivered 77 tanks to the Kenyan army in 2007. One diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was an "open secret" that weaponry arriving in Kenya from Ukraine has been sent to the autonomous southern Sudan, which would violate the peace treaty signed in 2005 ending the 20-year Sudanese civil war.
Western donors pouring millions of dollars into southern Sudan will be furious if the Government there is using its oil revenue to buy arms.
There have been about 30 hijacks of ships this year off Somalia, netting pirates millions in ransom dollars. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Somalia's UN representative, said yesterday the attacks " cannont and will not be allowed to continue", as they were undermining regional security.
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died.
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Seems they've figured out how to fix the piracy. Get some old junkers, load them up with modern day anthrax blankets, turn 'em over and turn tail. It won't take many toxic adventures before the pirates stop being pirates.
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Modern day pirates may be a bigger threat than anyone realizes. A terrrorist is a terrorist no matter what the name. No swashes to buckle, just evil cowards.
I would hope that the US Navy would use these incidents for live fire training. Collateral damages would no doubt ensue, but the incidents of "piracy" would decline rapidly. In my opinion.
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Oh, yes! Let's nuke the pirates! :rolleyes:
Even some of the Philippine blogs echo that sentiment.
The presumption of the United States as being the only nation on Earth with the predisposition to nuke its neighbors is naivety at worst.
If any nation had the "right" to nuke these pirates, you would think that it would be the Soviet--oops! the Russians. After all, it is their military hardware at risk (bound for the Sudan, at last reports).
Let's punish the Somalian people. After all, they are really the ones at fault here. You don't see them rising up with bombs strapped to their bodies to rid the "bad apples" in their government that continue their privations.
So, let's take out what limited power stations they possess. That'll teach the "bad apples," while leaving the populace who have a hard time trying to eek out a daily existence.
Let's take out the communication towers. Sending the people back into the stone age has no meaning: they are just about there already.
Maybe we should send in the U.S. Marines and force a democracy on the Somali people. But wait! We already tried that, and the celebration that followed our retreat is still heard today.
And, forget about the hostages the pirates have. "They" shouldn't have been there in the first place, right? So, a couple of hundred innocent lives are sacrificed in the operation to radically eliminate the pirates. IF the U.S. government is willing to put $1 trillion dollars into the economy (the bailout), what's another couple million to pay off the families. Money always comforts the loss of loved ones, especially the bread-winners.
Besides, kill one pirate, one or two more will pop up. And, the people will be even more pissed off at the United States for again going it alone to "save" the world of all its problems.
The current course is the correct one. The presence of the all-powerful U.S. Navy is giving the pirates cause to be intelligent. I would not at all be surprised that the U.S. Navy's presence will prevent other nations from a hot-headed, revenge-based act that will kill a lot of people.
Japan and Malaysia have already paid the ransom money. I suspect that the PI has as well, although they are not admitting it. Why? Because in the long run, it has nothing to do with being "chicken." The ransom money is a drop in the economic bucket in the long run.
The best way to deal with the pirates is a year or more from now, when warships can seek and destroy the pirates when innocent lives are not in harm's danger.
At the same time, there are many reasons why those pirates are operating freely. You have to dig for the stories, but the news media around the world is already indicating that the pirates are one pipeline for redirecting material from the "advertised" consumer to the "real" consumer who could not obtain material from legitimate sources.
To root out this form of terrorism, one has to start digging underground for the underlying causes: what is really supporting pirates. Piracy is like a hydra. You cut off one head, it grows another or more. Cut off its legs: it will eventually regenerate but at a much slower rate. Eliminate the need for the hydra in the first place: a huge reduction in piracy.
The latter proposal may be like pissing up a rope or in the wind: effects may be immediately seen to some degree, but in the long-term it will be akin to the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and other programs the world has engaged half-heartedly, because the will to win is absent.
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Wallis ~ That was just a quote from Ripley in "Aliens". Very much tongue in cheek. A simple overkill solution to a not so simple problem.
Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Hudson: Fuckin' A...
Burke: Ho-ho-hold on, hold on one second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it.
Ripley: They can *bill* me.
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Honestly, I think that the USN and a few Marines need to board those vessels, shoot the small power boats out of the water and take down the criminals. Period.
Kill them all.
Piracy on the seas is a crime as only as sailing and these guys need to be put out to pasture for good.
Stealing others' things is wrong no mater how it's done. When the thievery is accompanied by terrorism (and it is terrorism to shove a gun in peoples faces and threaten them, regardless of what some may believe or think about it - I've been there and had it done to me and it's not fun) then killing them OUTRIGHT is almost too good for them
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Somali pirates hijacked an Iranian vessel with enriched uranium from China! See here: http://samsonblinded.org/news/somali...cal-cargo-3525
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Mysterious Cargo Aboard Iranian Ship Seized by Pirates Raises WMD Concerns
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
By Joseph Abrams
File: The cargo ship MV Iran Deyanat, that was taken by Somali pirates last month.
As Somali pirates brazenly maintain their standoff with American warships off the coast of Africa, the cargo aboard one Iranian ship they commandeered is raising concerns that it may contain materials that can be used for chemical or biological weapons.
Some local officials suspect that instead of finding riches, the pirates encountered deadly chemical agents aboard the Iranian vessel.
On Aug. 21, the pirates, armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, stole onto the decks of the merchant vessel Iran Deyanat.
They ransacked the ship and searched the containers. But in the days following the hijacking, a number of them fell ill and died, suffering skin burns and hair loss, according to reports.
The pirates were sickened because of their contact with the seized cargo, according to Hassan Osman, the Somali minister of Minerals and Oil, who met with the pirates to facilitate negotiations.
"That ship is unusual," Osman told the Long War Journal, an online news source that covers the War on Terror. "It is not carrying a normal shipment."
The pirates reportedly were in talks to sell the ship back to Iran, but the deal fell through when the pirates were poisoned by the cargo, according to Andrew Mwangura, director of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Program.
"Yes, some of them have died," he told the Long War Journal. "Our sources say [the ship] contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals."
Iran has called the allegations a "sheer lie," and said that the ship "had no dangerous consignment on board," according to Iranian news source Press TV. Iran says the merchant vessel was shipping iron ore from a port in China to Amsterdam.
The ship's contents are still unclear, but the reported deaths and skin abrasions have raised concerns that it could be more than meets the eye.
The massive shipping company that controls the vessel, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL), was recently designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury over nuclear proliferation concerns.
IRISL, which is accused of falsifying documents to facilitate the shipment of weapons and chemicals for use in Iran's missile program, is blocked from moving money through U.S. banks as well as from carrying food and medical supplies as part of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran.
"IRISL's actions are part of a broader pattern of deception and fabrication that Iran uses to advance its nuclear and missile programs," said Stuart Levey, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
The U.S. government has made no accusation against IRISL regarding the Iran Denayat; the State Department would not comment on reports of its suspicious cargo.
"I don't have any information on that case," said State Department spokesman Curtis Cooper. "We're aware that there are currently 12 other hijacked ships off the Somali coast. This is obviously something that is disturbing."
Experts on Somalia are dubious of claims made by the country's provisional government, whose president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, reportedly has family ties to the pirates.
"I'm not saying it's impossible that this has happened, but I'd take anything they say with a great deal of salt," said J. Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. "They have made fanciful claims before in the hopes of attracting U.S. and other international attention."
Pham said that the 14 provisional governments that have ruled Somalia since 1991 have all relied on foreign aid for support and profit and could be trying to attract attention by inflating the current crisis.
"Would it be beyond them to raise the specter of WMDs in order to attract resources and international assistance? The only source of revenue for this government is foreign aid," he told FOXNews.com.
Chemical experts say the reports sound inconsistent with chemical poisoning, but may reflect the effects of exposure to radiation.
"It's baffling," said Jonathan Tucker, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "I'm not aware of any chemical agent that produces loss of hair within a few days. That's more suggestive of high levels of radioactive waste."
Tucker, a chemical and biological weapons expert, said that Chinese companies have been implicated in selling Iran so-called dual-use chemicals, legal ingredients that can be processed into chemical weapons.
The U.S. government says that Iran maintains facilities to process those chemicals as part of a chemical and biological weapons program. "Iran continues to seek dual-use technologies that could be used for biological warfare," said Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell in testimony before Congress in February.
But while Iran has purchased and shipped such chemicals in the past, it remains unclear whether the Iran Deyanat contains any illegal chemicals or harmful agents.
"A number of Chinese companies have been implicated in this illicit trade, but I've never heard of extremely toxic chemicals being shipped," Tucker told FOXNews.com. "It's very rare it's very unlikely that a country would ship manufactured weapons from one country to another."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,430681,00.html
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tranquill
Welcome aboard!
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...?section=world
EU moves against Somali pirates
By Africa correspondent Andrew Geoghegan
Posted Fri Oct 3, 2008 7:11am AEST
The European Union (EU) is planning to launch an anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia where a stand-off continues between several warships and pirates who have hijacked a ship.
The hijacking of a freighter carrying military equipment off the coast of Somalia a week ago has highlighted the danger shipping faces in that area.
Pirates are demanding a $20 million ransom for the Ukranian ship Faina, which is carrying 33 Russian tanks.
Somali pirates regularly target freighters that use the shipping lanes between the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden.
The European Union has resolved to take military action against the pirates.
At least nine EU countries will join an air and sea operation, which aims to safeguard one the world's key trading routes.
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle4870660.ece
October 3, 2008
Euro taskforce declares war on Somali pirates
Michael Evans, Rob Crilly and David Charter
An international armada was preparing to head towards the Somali coast yesterday as the stand-off with pirates holding a Ukrainian ship to ransom threatened to escalate.
Amid warnings that an effective blockade by the pirates could spark a famine in the Horn of Africa, European Union defence ministers meeting in Paris agreed to set up a naval taskforce to tackle the threat.
Two Royal Navy frigates, HMS Chatham and HMS Lancaster, are already in the region and could join the proposed fleet.
The pirates who seized the Ukrainian cargo ship MV Faina were in defiant mood yesterday, vowing to fight if there was an attempt to rescue the crew of 20. They also said that they were only prepared to hand over the cargo of tanks and weapons in return for a ransom of £11 million.
“Anyone who tries to attack us or deceive us will face bad repercussions,” Sugule Ali, a spokesman for the pirates, told the Associated Press in a satellite telephone interview. The vessel is surrounded by half a dozen American warships but no moves have been made to board it.
US military sources said that there was no international legal mandate to take such action, although steps were under way to seek approval from the United Nations.
The World Food Programme says that security against pirates is needed urgently if Somalia is to receive supplies to avert a famine on the scale of the 1980s.
“Plans to beef up the EU's anti-piracy taskforce with several frigates which can escort boats carrying food cannot come too soon,” Peter Goossens, of the World Food Programme for the east African country, said.
The British Ministry of Defence insisted that when the EU force, consisting of ships from ten countries, was established it was not intended to become involved in the MV Faina incident.
The MV Faina, which was captured on September 25, is anchored off the coast of Somalia near the port of Hobyo. The Times learnt that pick-up trucks were seen leaving the Somali capital, Mogadishu, at the weekend in an apparent attempt to unload the arsenal aboard the ship.
The thought of the arms going to Islamist militia may have helped to galvanise Western powers to get tough with the pirates, who have made Somali waters the world's most dangerous.
Bruno Schiemsky, a Somali analyst, said: “The hijacking of this latest Ukrainian vessel has implications for the overall security situation across the entire Horn of Africa.”
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b203625c-8...0779fd18c.html
Pirates in shoot-out aboard arms ship
By Barney Jopson in Nairobi and Robert Wright in London
Published: October 1 2008 03:00 | Last updated: October 1 2008 03:00
The pirates who seized a ship carrying military hardware off Somalia turned on each other yesterday as three were shot dead in a dispute over what to do with their hijacked cargo.
The outbreak of infighting aboard the Ukrainian vessel was seen by analysts as a reflection of the bloody factionalism ashore, which has fuelled piracy and kept Somalia a failed state. The recent upsurge in pirate attacks has recalled the world's attention to the country's woes, in particular frequent clashes with insurgents that have left 8,000 dead and 1m displaced since the start of 2007.
Piracy is threatening 20,000 annual ship movements through the Gulf of Aden, which gives access to the Red Sea and Suez Canal. That raises concern that vessels bound for Europe from the Middle East and Asia might be forced to divert around the Cape of Good Hope, which they did at great cost from 1967 to 1975 when the Arab-Israeli conflict closed the canal.
In the most brazen recent attack, dozens of heavily armed men in speedboats hijacked the Ukrainian ship last Thursday. It was carrying weapons including 33 Russian-made T-72 tanks, which were destined for Kenya and then for possible onward shipment to southern Sudan. The pirates have demanded a ransom of $20m (€14m, £11m).
Pottengal Mukundan, director of the International Maritime Bureau, which monitors piracy globally, said there was little prospect of ship owners ceasing to pay the ransoms that are encouraging pirates. "You cannot really stop a ship owner from paying, because there's no alternative," he said. "What does he do? Does he abandon his crew in these difficult circumstances?"
Malaysia's state-controlled shipowner MISC Bhd said yesterday it had paid an unspecified ransom to secure the release of two tankers held by Somali pirates.
For a third day yesterday the pirates on the Ukrainian vessel - anchored a few miles offshore - remained cornered by several warships from a US-led task force patrolling off Somalia.
The task force says it has deterred 12 attacks in the Gulf of Aden since the end of August. But there have been more than 50 attacks around Somalia this year and more than 20 have resulted in successful hijackings, according to the IMB.
Twelve vessels and 259 seafarers are currently being held hostage.
"We are covering 2.5m square miles of water. Policing all of it would take more ships than we could ever get," said Commodore Keith Winstanley, deputy commander of coalition naval forces in the Middle East. "We're not going to solve the problem. No naval force is going to solve it. The root cause of this problem rests ashore in Somalia."
Many analysts see piracy as the seaborne manifestation of money-making banditry that thrives in Somalia, where the central government collapsed in 1991.
Piracy was stamped out in 2006 by the Islamic Courts Union, an Islamist group that restored a semblance of order. The group was ousted by Ethiopian troops, with US backing, but the Islamists were not eliminated and, in recent months, have retaken some territory.
Possible links between pirates and the Islamists drove the United Nations' naval response to the hijacking of the Ukrainian ship.
Andrew Mwangura, of the East Africa Seafarers' Assistance Programme, which monitors piracy, said: "Some of the pirates are paranoid about the presence of the US navy.
Among them there are moderates and radicals: some who want to unload the cargo and some who don't; some who want to abort the mission and some who don't."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432161,00.html
Russia Pledges to Join Battle Against Piracy as U.S. Warships Circle Kidnapped Vessel
Friday, October 03, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/images/service_ap_36.gif
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Moscow will work with the U.S. and the European Union to fight piracy off the African coast and elsewhere, Russia's foreign minister said.
The state-run RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Sergey Lavrov as saying Friday that Russia "aims to prevent pirates from causing mayhem."
Lavrov called for closer cooperation with the U.S. and EU against piracy. He said Russia and other nations will act on the basis of a U.N. resolution that authorized countries to enter Somalia's territorial waters and use "all necessary means" to stop piracy.
Somali pirates are holding a Ukrainian ship with a cargo of battle tanks and two Russian crew members aboard off Somalia's coast. Russia has dispatched a warship to the area but has not said what it will do when it gets there.
The pirates gave no indication they planned to surrender, as six U.S. warships circled the vessel Friday with clearance from the Somali government to attack it.
Meanwhile, activists condemned Kenya's arrest of a Kenyan maritime official on Wednesday night who had been the first to tip off media that the weapons aboard the ship hijacked nine days ago were heading to Southern Sudan. His account was later confirmed by the U.S. Navy and Western intelligence sources.
Kenya has vehemently denied statements by the official, Andrew Mwangura, that the 33 Soviet-designed tanks and weapons onboard the MV Faina were destined for neighboring Southern Sudan. The Kenyan government insists Kenya is the final destination.
Click here for photos.
The allegation is highly embarrassing to Kenya, which brokered Sudan's north-south peace deal in 2005. Southern Sudan is due to have a referendum on independence in 2011. Many analysts believe the north will be reluctant to let the oil-rich south break away, risking a return to the civil war that has already claimed 2 million lives.
The Somali government has given foreign powers the freedom to use force against the pirates holding the Faina and its 20 crew members. It is anchored near the central Somali town of Hobyo, with six American warships within 10 miles of it.
Russia, whose warship is not expected for several days, has used commando tactics to end several hostage situations on its own soil, but dozens of hostages have died in those efforts.
On Thursday, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali told The Associated Press via satellite telephone that the pirates were prepared to defend the ship and would not take less than their stated ransom of $20 million. It was not immediately possible to reach Ali on Friday morning.
The American Navy warships have been tracking Faina amid fears that its weapons might fall into the hands of Al Qaeda-linked Islamic insurgents in Somalia, and this week, eight European countries have offered to form a combined anti-piracy force at the invitation of the Somali government. Some 26 ships have been hijacked off the notorious Somali coast this year already.
In Kenya, government spokesman Alfred Mutua refused to comment on Friday about the arrest of Mwangura, who was charged with making "inflammatory statements."
Leonard Vincent, a spokesman for Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders, said the charges against Mwangura might stop other officials coming forward with information in a country rated as one of the most corrupt in the world.
"We think it is a dangerous precedent and a signal sent to those who have information contradicting the Kenyan government," he said. "We are not used to seeing this in Kenya, that is why we are outraged and surprised."
Hassan Omar Hassan, a commissioner of the Kenya National Commission of Human Rights, said Mwangura told Hassan he had been warned by intelligence officials, police and local officials not to comment publicly on the weapons' destination.
"He has caused a public relations nightmare for the government," Hassan said. "If its a matter of public interest, the public has a right to information."
Mwangura also was charged with possessing four joints of marijuana on Thursday. A judge ruled he should be held for five days in prison while further investigations were made. Mutua, the Kenyan government spokesman, accused Mwangura at a televised news conference of being a go-between for the pirates.
Those charges were not brought before a court.
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Somali Pirates Stand Ground as Foreign Ships Surround Them
Sunday, October 05, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/images/service_ap_36.gif http://www.foxnews.com/images/446356...8_pirates1.jpg AP
U.S. Navy destroyer USS Howard, left, and the Russian missile frigate Neustrashimy responded to the Somalia coast in response to a pirate hijacking.
MOGADISHU, Somalia — With a Russian frigate closing in and a half-dozen U.S. warships within shouting distance, the pirates holding a tanker off Somalia's coast might appear to have no other choice than to wave the white flag.
But that's not how it works in Somalia, a failed state where a quarter of children die before they turn 5, where anybody with a gun controls the streets and where every public institution has crumbled.
The 11-day standoff aboard the Ukrainian MV Faina raises the question: How can a bunch of criminals from one of the poorest and most wretched countries on Earth face off with some of the world's richest and well-armed superpowers?
"They have enough guns to fight for another 20 years," Ted Dagne, a Somalia analyst in Washington, told The Associated Press. "And there is no way to win a battle when the other side is in a suicidal mind-set."
In Somalia, pirates are better-funded, better-organized and better-armed than one might imagine in a country that has been in tatters for nearly two decades. They have the support of their communities and rogue members of the government — some pirates even promise to put ransom money toward building roads and schools.
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- With most attacks ending with million-dollar payouts, piracy is considered the biggest economy in Somalia. Pirates rarely hurt their hostages, instead holding out for a huge payday.
The strategy works well: A report Thursday by a London-based think tank said pirates have raked in up to $30 million in ransoms this year alone.
"If we are attacked we will defend ourselves until every last one of us dies," Sugule Ali, a spokesman for the pirates aboard the Faina, said in an interview over satellite telephone from the ship, which is carrying 33 battle tanks, military weapons and 21 Ukrainian and Latvian and Russian hostages. One Russian has reportedly died, apparently of illness.
The pirates are demanding $20 million ransom, and say they will not lower the price.
"We only need money and if we are paid, then everything will be OK," he said. "No one can tell us what to do."
Ali's bold words come even though his dozens of fighters are surrounded by U.S. warships and American helicopters buzz overhead. Moscow has sent a frigate, which should arrive within days.
Jennifer Cooke of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said hostage-taking is the key to the pirates' success against any military muscle looming from the U.S. and Russia.
"Once you have a crew at gunpoint, you can hold six U.S. naval warships at bay and they don't have a whole lot of options except to wait it out," Cooke said.
The pirates have specifically warned against the type of raids carried out twice this year by French commandos to recover hijacked vessels. The French used night vision goggles and helicopters in operations that killed or captured several pirates, who are now standing trial in Paris.
But the hostages are not the bandits' only card to play.
Often dressed in military fatigues, pirates travel in open skiffs with outboard engines, working with larger mother ships that tow them far out to sea. They use satellite navigational and communications equipment and an intimate knowledge of local waters, clambering aboard commercial vessels with ladders and grappling hooks.
They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenades — weaponry that is readily available throughout Somalia, where a bustling arms market operates in the center of the capital.
They also have the support of their communities and some members of local administrations, particularly in Puntland, a semiautonomous region in northeast Somalia that is a hotbed for piracy, officials and pirates have told the AP.
Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf, a deputy minister of ports in Puntland, acknowledged there were widespread signs that Puntland officials, lawmakers and government officials are "involved or benefiting from piracy" and said investigations were ongoing. He would not elaborate.
Piracy has transformed the region around the town of Eyl, near where many hijacked ships are anchored brought while pirates negotiate ransoms.
"Pirates buy new luxury cars and marry two, three, or even four women," said Mohamed, an Eyl resident who refused to give his full name for fear of reprisals from the pirates.
"They build new homes — the demand for construction material is way up."
He said most of the well-known pirates promise to build roads and schools in addition to homes for themselves. But for now, Mohamed says he has only seen inflation skyrocket as the money pours in.
"One cup of tea is about $1," he said. Before the piracy skyrocketed, tea cost a few cents.
Piracy in Somalia is nothing new, as bandits have stalked the seas for years. But this year's surge in attacks — nearly 30 so far — has prompted an unprecedented international response. The Faina has been the highest-profile attack because of its dangerous cargo. The U.S. fears the arms could end up in the hands of al-Qaida-linked militants in a country seen as a key battleground on terror.
The United States has been leading international patrols to combat piracy along Somalia's unruly 1,880-mile coast, the longest in Africa and near key shipping routes. In June, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution that would allow countries to chase and arrest pirates after attacks increased this year.
But still, the attacks continue. Dagne, an analyst in Washington, said that unless the roots of the problem are solved — poverty, disease, violence — piracy will only flourish.
"You have a population that is frustrated, alienated, angry and hopeless," Dagne said. "This generation of Somalis grew up surrounded by abject poverty and violence."
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
U.S. navy tanker under apparent pirate attack off Somalia
Reuters ^ | Sept 24, 2008 | Stefano Ambrogi LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy said on Wednesday it appeared pirates had tried to attack one of its big military oil tankers.
A security team aboard the vessel opened fire on two small boats near Somalia after they ignored warnings and pursued the ship, a U.S. Fifth Fleet spokesman said.
"From all appearances it does look like it was a pirate attack and the incident is currently under investigation," he said by telephone from Bahrain.
He said the Military Sealift Command (MSC) oil tanker, the John Lenthall, which usually carries a range of fuels for the U.S. armed forces, was transiting outside Somalia's territorial waters when the incident took place.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
HAHAHA - Wrong gaddam oil tanker, you idiots!!!
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Opinion: Is it an Axis?
Evidence - though odd - is arising that there are nuclear and militaristic agreements between Iran and China. Despite the weird way in which evidence came to light, the end result is the same; an alliance of nations averse to US demands is forming.
A large number of Somali pirates who participated in the hijacking of an Iranian merchant vessel on August 21st, 2008 have died. The pirates reported both hair loss and skin burns – two symptoms of radiation exposure – and “fell gravely ill ‘within days’ of boarding” the Iranian ship.
In an article titled “Pirates die strangely after taking Iranian ship” author Andrew Donaldson provided many details surrounding both the ship and the incident:
“The vessel’s declared cargo consists of ‘minerals’ and ‘industrial products’. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels. (…)
The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest, it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products” purchased by a German client.”
These details were provided by sources close to the incident – namely Hassan Allore Osman, a regional minister of minerals in Somalia – and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), which is run and owned by the Iranian military.
Donaldson points out that “according to the US Treasury Department, the IRISL regularly falsifies shipping documents to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments and operates under various covers to circumvent United Nations sanctions.”
If the sources close to those that have reportedly fallen ill aren’t lying, this certainly appears to be a case of severe radiation exposure, which then raises many alarming questions.
First and foremost, what form of nuclear material was in the cargo holds?
Secondly, where was the Iranian vessel going? Thirdly, was it loaded in China?
Fourth, what are the implications of trade arrangement that has China as the supplier and Iran as the distributor of nuclear material? That last one is a big and scary one.
And with so little coverage of this story, it's hard to even begin to grapple with that question.
One thing that can't be questioned though, is that the ties between Iran and Russia, China and Russia, and now - apparently - Iran and China are closer than ever.
And in lieu of recent international developments – from the battle in Georgia to the economic disaster mounting on Wall Street – there is reason to believe that the alliances being forged between Iran, Russia, and China is not only a friendly union of like-minded nations, but also a coalition interested in succeeding without abiding to US demands.
The engagement in Georgia clearly demonstrated Russia’s willingness to act without US approval (though, as written by Fareed Zakaria, this act may well be remembered as a Russian strategic blunder), and the turmoil in the US economy might hasten a steadfast bond between these nations. Even if there is a Wall Street bailout (which there likely will be in some form) – to state it bluntly – there is more reason to not have faith in the American economy than to believe in it.
The bailout package is a band-aid covering up a gaping wound that hasn’t been sterilized, which means the same type of infection will again find its way into Wall Street. Capital can’t cure incompetence.
And with that in mind, the main reason for China to bear American policies (economics) is significantly – though not totally – reduced. So why not pursue closer ties with the ideologically-aligned, oil rich nations of Iran and Russia. Heck, Russia is even considering the installing a currency backed by gold, meaning their money would be intrinsically valuable… Meanwhile Bush is saying “we can print unlimited money because it's really only paper”…
Of course, the triad between Iran, Russia, and China does not amount to the apocalypse. The European Union is a great check-and-balance amalgamation that - along with individual nations like England, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia and so on - act as stabilizer in the sever hostile world of international relations.
But the essential question left on the table is this; in a world with a weak American economy, a US army stretched thin, increasing power in China, Russia, and Iran, and an increasing military capacity in those nations, could the partnership between these three add up to an axis of opposition in the near future?
Well, if Iranian trade ships laden with nuclear stores headed from China in the direction of Iran serve as an indicator, there is reason to believe that members of nations closely tied to the US should be weary of an alliance between Iran, China, and Russia.
What do you think?
Thanks for reading.
GRMM
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http://www.thetimes.co.za/images/tim..._printthis.gif |
Pirates die strangely after taking Iranian ship | Andrew Donaldson | Published:Sep 28, 2008 | | http://www.thetimes.co.za/thumbnail....=img&id=141247
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: The Russian frigate Neustrashimy, which was sent to the coast of Somalia this week after a Ukrainian ship carrying arms, including 33 T-72 tanks, was also hijacked by Somali pirates Picture: AP | | |
| A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.
Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.
Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”
The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.
The drama over the Iran Deyanat comes as speculation grew this week about whether the South African Navy would send a vessel to join the growing multinational force in the region.
A naval spokesman, Lieutenant-Commander Greyling van den Berg, told the Sunday Times that the navy had not been ordered by the government to become involved in “the Somali pirate issue”.
About 22000 ships a year pass through the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden, where regional instability and “no-questions-asked” ransom payments have led to a dramatic rise in attacks on vessels by heavily armed Somali raiders in speedboats.
The Iran Deyanat was sailing in those waters on August 21, past the Horn of Africa and about 80 nautical miles southeast of Yemen, when it was boarded by about 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. They were alleged members of a crime syndicate said to be based at Eyl, a small fishing village in northern Somalia.
The ship is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, a state-owned company run by the Iranian military.
According to the US Treasury Department, the IRISL regularly falsifies shipping documents to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments and operates under various covers to circumvent United Nations sanctions.
The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest, it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products” purchased by a German client.
At Eyl, the ship was secured by more pirates — about 50 on board, and another 50 on shore.
But within days those who had boarded the ship developed mysterious health trouble.
This was also confirmed by Hassan Allore Osman, minister of minerals and oil in Puntland, an autonomous region of Somalia.
He headed a delegation sent to Eyl when news of the toxic cargo and illnesses surfaced.
He told one news publication, The Long War Journal, that during the six days he had negotiated with the pirates, a number of them had become sick and died.
“That ship is unusual,” he was quoted as saying. “It is not carrying a normal shipment.”
The pirates did reveal that they had tried to inspect the ship’s cargo containers when some of them fell sick — but the containers were locked.
Osman’s delegation spoke to the ship’s captain and its engineer by cellphone, demanding to know more about the cargo.
Initially it was claimed the cargo contained “crude oil”; later it was said to be “minerals”.
And Mwangura has added: “Our sources say it contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals.”
But IRISL has denied that — and threatened legal action against Mwangura. The company has reportedly paid the pirates 200000 — the first of several “ransom instalments”, but that, too, has been denied.
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--oO Article End Oo-- |
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Iran Deyanat - Iran
The 1983-built, 44,468 dwt, bulk carrier Iran Deyanat is seen in this photograph while she was anchored near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on April 27th, 1992. She sailed originally as Odinlock (94). Photograph by Rick Garcia |
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Posted: April 28, 2002 Last Revised: April 28, 2002
Photo by : Rick Garcia - Copyright © - 1992, 2002
Site updated and maintained by Jeff Cameron
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
About that Iranian ship... no one is talking much about this.
Here's someone on FR working the issue and what he had to say:
I’m working on that this morning. I believe it is still anchored off the coast of Somalia in the hands of the pirates. I can tell you that something is really wrong here. The Russian warship, Peter the Great, is high-tailing it to the area and may well already be there. Supposedly to deal with the hijacking of the Faina on sept 24. Noboby (no govt, no major news media) is even mentioning the Deneyat. Interestingly, on sept 23, one day BEFORE the Faina was hijacked, Russia announced it was headed there!
http://www.lloydslist.com/ll/news/ru...0017573576.htm
I am beginning to be convinced that it is being used for cover. That the real crisis is the Deneyat. I read on one blog that the ship might be full of radioactive sand and massive explosives. That the intention was for it to continue up the Suez canal to a position downwind from Israel and then be blown up. This would have served as a dirty bomb attack on Israel.
http://shiratdevorah.blogspot.com/20...irty-bomb.html
7 posted on Monday, October 06, 2008 5:12:49 AM by 1curiousmind (October surprise - WW3?)
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
FOXnews reported this morning that 27 ships have been hijacked this year by pirates off the coast of Africa.
Big ships. not little boats.
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
The American Elephant Gored by the Horn of Africa
06/10/2008By Dr. Hamad Al-Majid
The American elephant, symbol of the Republican Party, received a painful stab in its side from the sharp Horn of Africa. The piracy acts off the Somali coasts are the natural outcome of the reckless and ill-planned American intervention in Somalia on the pretext of fighting terror (and making the world safer). And here are now the countries of the world whose ships used to sail through the Horn of Africa fearing no one but God and the sharks are now the target of the biggest piracy in history.
Though the benefiting countries knew that piracy was taking place off the troubled Somali coasts, yet they did not care much, first, because they considered them some kind of hooliganism by the gangs of a hungry people where there is no state and no order and, secondly, because they paid sums of money which were not large compared to insuring commercial ships carrying goods worth hundreds of millions of dollars until statistics showed that the monies paid to the Somali pirates during one year reached $30 million. But the Ukrainian ship carrying tanks and heavy weapons inflamed the issue of piracy in the Horn of Africa because the prey this time is valuable and fat and therefore the ransom for this ship alone equals the pirates' income in a whole year. The American elephant is being gored these days by the Horn of Africa, suffocated by the Taliban's Afghan turban, restrained by the Iraqi headdress, muzzled by the Iranian carpet, and provoked by the recovering Russian bear and is almost being swept up by the American financial crisis.
The United States is now begging Taliban, which the world expected it to be crushed forever, to sit at the negotiations table with the collapsing Karzai Government. Taliban is rejecting the negotiations offer except under its conditions and agendas. Somalia, where the Islamic Courts imposed control after 20 years of anarchy, the United States intervened to crush it as it crushed its sister Taliban only to return as a major player on the Somali stage and with a more dangerous role. We do not rule out the likelihood of the Ukrainian ship and its ransom ending up as a cool booty in the "terrorists'" hands. Had the United States tried to coexist with the moderate voices in the Somali factions and in the Taliban movement, it would have spared itself and the world this chaos in which these two countries are living. As for Iraq, though the United States did deliver strong blows to Al-Qaeda organization and those moving in its orbit, yet they do not seem to be fatal blows and we do not know if this organization is bending its head these days before the American storm only to raise it again as the "Islamic Courts" had done in Somalia and Taliban in Afghanistan? These dangerous crises which the Republican elephant has failed to tackle do not make us feel optimistic that the coming Democratic donkey can solve them no matter how much is said about its patience and perseverance.
Is this American failure to deal with the chronic crises an early sign of the start of the countdown for loosening the grip around the world and the beginning of the end of America's global hegemony? It appears to be so.
Here is North Korea, which bent before the American storm and threats and announced it was abandoning and dismantling its nuclear program, announcing these days it is backing down on this announcement. Russia exploited America's quandaries in the international crises to announce its arrival in strength through the Georgian door. Iran is meanwhile continuing to implement cleverly its nuclear program knowing it is safe from the wounded American giant. The world's move from unipolar hegemony to competition from other powers is in the interest of world peace because the world was safer during the Cold War between the West and east than it is now in the age of unipolar dominance. Ask the official spokesman of the Somali pirates who is speaking from aboard the hijacked Ukrainian ship, sitting with one leg over the other and blowing smoke from his cigarette as he waits for the $30 million ransom and mocking America and the world that has become safer!
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=14311
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
This was posted this morning... details are sketchy at best.
Quote:
Last night an American, the captain of the vessel Chill, Ken Peters, was killed by pirates at Isla Borracha near Puerto La Cruz. Ken and his wife Cathy were anchored with another boat I'Lean, Steve & Gloria Davis aboard. They were departing Puerto La Cruz from Bah*a Redonda Marina headed west and stopped for the night to clean the boat bottoms and prepare for the voyage west.
About 5:30 PM they were approached by 3 men in a piñero who asked for water. When one of the crew came back up from below with water, they shot Ken with pistols, and attempted to kill Steve. Details are not precise, but Steve apparently then shot at the pirates with a shotgun and killed one and injured another of the bandits. Ken was killed in the exchange and Steve injured but not badly.
The Guarda Costa was called and responded and the 2 sailboats returned to PLC last night late. The widow, Cathy Peters, sailed her boat back with the help of a friend and guarded by a soldier. Steve sailed his boat back and the police recovered the body of Ken from I'Lean. It is expected that the body will be cremated here in Puerto La Cruz. It is especially horrible as Cathy just returned from the US having just buried her mother. The whole community here is in a state of shock and grief. A large scale exodus of cruisers is probable. We plan to depart in a few days, as was our plan previously.
It is difficult to understand these things from incomplete reports and I won't second guess Steve his decision, but violence is not the answer to violence. To those of us who sail the world, the question is: How could any ordinary peaceful cruiser be prepared for such an unprovoked confrontation? Do we need to keep automatic weapons in the cockpit on lock and load?
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Quote:
Due to a botched edit, the account was left a bit garbled. I clarified it as details became available but it caused some confusion. It has been a day of raw emotional thunderstorms here in Bahía Redonda Marina. We are thankful that not all of our friends died, for sure. But 2 people died last night and there is no celebrating even the death of the Venzuelan perpetrator. If we are all to go off and practice at the firing range and purchase advanced weapons systems before we go off cruising then I will happily depart the scene in favor of life in some more peaceful retirement community. We must look at the causes and conditions for such violence. Carrying that around with us does no good. Venezuelans are often armed in their homes and cars and boats. They still are robbed, often! If you want to make your boat a prime target in this area just let it be known that you have guns, drugs, or money on board. The thieves will come calling for sure. I still wait for that answer, How can peaceful mariners travel the sea prepared for such wanton violence and unprovoked aggression?
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
From Times Online
November 12, 2008
Royal Navy in firefight with Somali pirates
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...85_431869a.jpg
(MoD) The Royal Navy described the boarding as 'compliant'
Michael Evans, Defence Editor and Rob Crilly
Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles.
In the ensuing gunfight, two Somali pirates in a Yemeni-registered fishing dhow were killed, and a third pirate, believed to be a Yemeni, suffered injuries and subsequently died. It was the first time the Royal Navy had been engaged in a fatal shoot-out on the high seas in living memory.
By the time the Royal Marines boarded the pirates’ vessel, the enemy had lost the will to fight and surrendered quietly. The Royal Navy described the boarding as “compliant”.
Yesterday’s dramatic confrontation, the latest in a series of piracy incidents in the Gulf of Aden in recent months, took place 60 miles south of the Yemeni coast and involved the Royal Navy Type 22 frigate, HMS Cumberland, which has a Royal Marine unit on board, on short-notice standby to engage in “non-compliant boardings”.
HMS Cumberland, on anti-piracy partol as part of a Nato maritime force, detected the dhow which was towing a skiff, and identified it as a vessel which had been involved in an attack on the Danish-registered MV Powerful earlier yesterday. The pirates had opened fire on the cargo boat with assault rifles.
Under rules of engagement which allows the Royal Navy to intervene when pirates are positively identified, the commandos were dispatched from the frigate in rigid-raider craft and sped towards the pirates’ dhow. The Ministry of Defence said the Marines circled the pirates’ boat to try and persuade them to stop.
As they approached, however, several of the pirates, a mixed crew of Somalis and Yemenis, swung their assault rifles in their direction and opened fire. The MoD said the Royal Marines returned fire “in self defence”, and then boarded the dhow — a stolen Yemeni-registered fishing vessel.
The commandos found guns and other “paraphernalia” on board the dhow and a handful of terrified pirates. The MoD said it was unclear whether the Yemeni who died had been shot by the Marines or was wounded from a previous incident involving the pirates.
The gun battle was in stark contrast to the Royal Navy’s last encounter with a boatful of armed men - when crew members of HMS Cornwall, also a Type 22 frigate, patrolling in the Gulf in rigid raiders, were surrounded by heavily armed Iranian Revolutionary Guards in March last year. Eight sailors, including a woman, Leading Seaman Faye Turney, and seven Marines were taken hostage without a shot being fired, and detained for 13 days. The Commons Defence Committee described the incident as “a national embarrassment”.
Yesterday’s battle signalled a new policy of maximum robustness for the Royal Navy on the high seas. Captain Mike Davis-Marks, a senior spokesman for the Navy, said: “This is bound to have an impact on pirates who for the last two years have been getting away with seizing vessels and receiving large ransoms. Now suddenly there’s the threat of death and this may force them to think again, but they are determined people, so we’ll have to see.”
The Russians claimed a helicopter based on their own frigate Neustrashimy had also taken part in yesterday’s battle, though the Royal Navy knew nothing about it. The Royal Marine commandos who boarded the pirates’ dhow were supported by a Lynx helicopter from HMS Cumberland, the MoD said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle5141745.ece