Somali pirates becoming more aggressive
Indian Ocean hijackers are more desperate and more
deadly, say experts:
Tristan McConnell
Somali pirates are becoming increasingly violent in their attacks on
foreign vessels experts warned in the aftermath of the killings of four
Americans who were hijacked last week.
Somali Pirates holding South Korean ship |
Pirates being arrested |
Jean and Scott Adam, a retired California couple, and their friends
Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle, both from Seattle, died Tuesday when a
gunfight erupted while the US military was attempting to negotiate their
release.
“This does not normally happen,” East African Seafarers’ Assistance
Program based in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa Head Andrew Mwangura
said.
Mwangura told GlobalPost that with more than a dozen armed pirates
aboard a small boat shadowed by US warships, tensions aboard the yacht
would undoubtedly have risen.
“Misunderstandings can happen among pirates when there are a big
number of them in a small boat facing shortages of food and water,” he
said.
Somali pirates are currently holding 33 vessels and 712 hostages
according to figures compiled by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB)
Piracy Reporting Center. The IMB says that there have been 48 attacks
and 11 successful hijackings this year.
International navies patrolling in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean
have noted that Somali pirates are behaving more violently in recent
months, firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at targeted
vessels and treating hostages with greater aggression.
“There is a really unpleasant spike in the violence and pressure
tactics that pirates seem willing to use,” piracy researcher at London’s
Royal Institute for International Affairs Roger Middleton said.
Middleton told GlobalPost that hostages have been tied up and hung
from ceilings and that gunshots have been fired during negotiation phone
calls to intimidate relatives and employers.
“The stakes are rising and if the pirates are trying to make a $9
million ransom instead of $1 million ransom they are going to use every
tactic available to them,” said Middleton.
The navies have also taken a more combative stance.
In separate incidents in January Malaysian and South Korean
commandoes launched rescue raids on hijacked ships, rescuing crew and
killing pirates.
Experts put the change down to a number of factors. They say the
piracy has proved so successful (the average ransom has more than
doubled in the last year and is now around $5 million) that criminal
gangs and militants are entering the business bringing with them a
greater willingness to use violence.
Seizing a yacht with a UK couple |
Seizing a Malaysian liner |
Captured pirates |
In the past, most pirates were fishermen with knowledge of the seas
but increasingly they are simply armed men on boats who, thanks to naval
patrols, travel further out to sea. When they encounter a vessel a
successful hijacking might be the only way home, as well as the only way
to win a ransom.
“There is a change in the nature of the individuals doing the
attacks, from fishermen to fighters,” United Nations Office for Drugs
and Crime (UNODC) in Nairobi anti-piracy programs coordinator Alan Cole
said. “As a result we’re seeing a higher mortality of pirates at sea,
and when they do attack they are more desperate,” said Cole who called
the development “deeply concerning.”
Soon after the 58-foot yacht, the S/V Quest, was pirated off Oman on
February 18, a NATO warship deployed as part of an international
anti-piracy force captured the pirate’s mother ship, leaving the pirates
stranded aboard the yacht.
Four US Navy warships began shadowing the yacht: an aircraft carrier,
a guided-missile cruiser and two guided-missile destroyers.
A standoff pitching four warships against a single yacht with
hostages illustrates the asymmetrical nature of the fight against piracy
that was thrown into sharp relief in April 2009 when a handful of
pirates detaining an American ship’s captain aboard a life raft held off
the US Navy for days.
That deadlock was broken when Navy SEAL snipers shot and killed three
pirates and freed Capt Richard Philips. A fourth pirate, Abdiwali
Abdiqadir Muse, was tried in a New York court, found guilty and
sentenced to 33 years in jail just days before the Quest was hijacked.
On the evening of February 21 two pirates were taken aboard the
destroyer USS Sterett for negotiations, but the following morning
everything unraveled. “The intent always had been that this would be a
negotiated process and not ever going to a point where we actually had
gunfire,” US Navy 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain commander Adm Mark Fox
said.
But at 8 am the next day, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the
Sterett 600-yards away “with absolutely no warning,” according to Fox.
Immediately afterward, gunfire erupted inside the Quest.
“US (special operations forces) closed in on the Quest in small boats
and boarded the yacht,” said Adm Fox. “As they responded to the gunfire,
reaching and boarding the Quest, the US sailors discovered that all four
hostages had been shot by their captors. Despite immediate steps to
provide life-saving care, all four of the American hostages died of
their wounds.”
The US commandoes killed two pirates in hand-to-hand combat once
aboard the yacht - one with a knife, the other with a gun - found two
pirates already dead suggesting that a dispute may have broken out, and
arrested 13 others in addition to the two already aboard the American
destroyer.
All 15 surviving pirates are being held aboard the aircraft carrier
USS Enterprise while the FBI carries out investigations. The Somalis are
likely to be transported to the US for trial where they may face the
death penalty.
In a twist that will worry the ship owners who frequently pay out
multi-million dollar ransoms to pirate gangs it was reported this week
that a deal has been struck between pirates and Al Shabaab, the Somali
Islamist militia linked to Al Qaeda.
According to reports pirate gang leaders in the coastal town of
Haradhere have agreed to pay the Shabaab insurgents who control the
area, 20 percent of future ransom payments, an amount that could run
into many millions of dollars and which would be directly funding Al
Shabaab’s terrorism.
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