Current Articles & News v.3

Here are links to current articles and new releases regarding the crisis of international hijacking by pirates (terrorists).

Latitude 4.595N, longitude 48.085E: We find the hijacked Sirius Star From a vantage point 423 miles above the Earth, the lawless waters of the Gulf of Aden appear tranquil and the 330-metre-long ship sitting low under a £68m cargo looks like a tiny green cigar floating on an inky ocean. These pictures, taken by a satellite commissioned by the Guardian and hurtling over Africa at four miles a second, show the Sirius Star, the Saudi supertanker which 12 days ago became the biggest prize ever seized by the Somali pirates who have claimed the Gulf of Aden as their hunting ground. The images also reveal a triangle of ships, three of the 40 vessels to have been hijacked in Somali waters this year. Although not as vast as the Sirius Star, the Stolt Strength, the African Sanderling and the Yasa Neslihan are together home to 64 seafarers, two-thirds of them from the Philippines. (GuardianUK, 11/27/2008)

FACTBOX-Ships held by Somali pirates Information on twelve ships, believed still being help by pirates, including: Centauri, Capt. Stephanos, Faina, African Sanderling, Stolt Strength, The Karagol, Tianyu, Chemstar Venus, Sirius Star, The Delight, Adina, and MS Biscaglia. (Reuters, 11/28/2008)

Somali pirates hijack ship, British guards escape Somali pirates hijacked a chemical tanker with dozens of Indian crew members Friday and a helicopter rescued three British security guards who had jumped into the sea, officials said. A warship on patrol nearby sent helicopters to intervene in the attack, but they arrived after pirates had taken control of the Liberian-flagged ship, according to Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Malaysia. (MyWay, 11/28/2008)

Battling the Somali Pirates: The Return of the Islamists T.E. Lawrence ("of Arabia") famously compared counterinsurgency warfare to "eating soup with a knife." The same idea might apply to the efforts of Western navies to protect commercial shipping from the marauding pirates of Somalia, except for the fact that soup is typically contained within a bowl, and the pirates have the freedom of a vast ocean in which to move. But if the pirates have the wind at their backs out at sea, they got some bad news back on shore last weekend, when five armored vehicles loaded with fighters of the Islamist Shabab militia arrived in the port town of Harardhere, where the pirates who seized the Sirius Star are based. (Time 11/25/2008)

Somali Pirates Hijack Another Ship, Drop Ransom for Saudi Tanker Pirates seized the MV Adina in the Gulf of Aden as it headed to the Yemeni island of Socotra, according to Yemen's official news agency. The ship was carrying over 500 tons of steel and seven crew members from Somalia, Yemen and Panama. (Voice of America, 11/25/2006)

Somalian Terror Organization Shabaab al Mujahideen Looks to 'Throw the West Into Hell' Shabaab al Mujahideen, which espouses radical Islamic rule and has close ties to Al Qaeda, is best known for operating training camps for people seeking a more extreme form of Jihad. It also has been forging relations with Somali pirates who have recently been intercepting and holding for ransom several international shipping vessels. Shabaab's ultimate goal, as articulated in an April statement, is to throw the West "into hell.” (FOX News, 11/25/2008)

Pirate Attacks Fail to Revive Tumbling Tanker Rates Oil shipping costs may extend this year's 76 percent rout as shrinking energy demand and a global recession eclipse disruptions caused by pirates off east Africa capturing their largest-ever freighter. Tanker rates next month are about 7 percent lower than yesterday's level on the Persian Gulf to Japan route, according to derivative contracts called Forward Freight Agreements that trade privately among banks, brokers, hedge funds and shipping companies. Transport costs plunged this year as OPEC curtailed production, lowering demand for vessels. (Bloomberg, 11/25/2008)

Pirate ‘Mother Ship’ or Thai Trawler? As if things weren’t chaotic enough in the Gulf of Aden: a suspected pirate ship that was sunk last week by the Indian Navy now appears to have actually been a Thai fishing trawler, according to CNN, which cites the ship’s owner. But it turns out now that the “mother ship” may not have been in pirate hands very long. According to the CNN report, the ship was the trawler Ekawat Nava 5, which had been headed from Oman to Yemen to deliver fishing equipment when it was attacked by pirates off the Horn of Africa, according to Wicharn Sirichaiekawat, owner of the Ekawat Nava 5. The pirates were still taking control of the ship when the Tabar moved in, he said. (NY Times, 11/25/2008)

World Scrambles To Deal With Pirate Threat The most important things in life are simple, at least in the world of Erik Prince. A square-jawed American with closely cropped hair, Prince served as an elite soldier in the U.S. Marines in Bosnia, Haiti and the Middle East. Given his experience, he believes that it will be relatively easy for him to distinguish between good and evil on the new battlefield, the high seas. "If a couple of guys are sitting in a six-meter (20-foot) fishing boat, in the middle of the Gulf of Aden, and if they've got bazookas in their hands, they're clearly not out there for the fishing," says Prince, 39, the CEO of Blackwater Worldwide, the world's largest and most infamous private security firm. "You have a pretty good idea of what they're up to." (Free Internet Press, 11/25/2008)

Why Don't We Hang Pirates Anymore? Year-to-date, Somalia-based pirates have attacked more than 90 ships, seized more than 35, and currently hold 17. Some 280 crew members are being held hostage, and two have been killed. Billions of dollars worth of cargo have been seized; millions have been paid in ransom. A multinational naval force has attempted to secure a corridor in the Gulf of Aden, through which 12% of the total volume of seaborne oil passes, and U.S., British and Indian naval ships have engaged the pirates by force. Yet the number of attacks keeps rising. (Wall Street Journal, 11/25/2008)