Essays by David Axe

The following are links to blogs, articles and essays written by David Axe on the Somalian pirate and vessel hijacking situation. David Axe is a freelance writer, photographer and videographer based in Washington, DC. He works for Defense Tech Int'l, The Washington Times, C-SPAN, Military.com and others. He blogs at www.defensetech.org and www.warisboring.com.

Kenya Strikes Legal Blow against Piracy Kenya won a quiet but significant victory over Somali pirates that have waged a devastating campaign against its maritime economy when a judge at the Mombasa federal court formally charged eight Somali pirates with felonies under Kenyan law on Dec. 11. The eight men were captured by the British Royal Navy in November while trying to hijack a Danish merchant ship near the Yemeni coast. (World Politics Review, 12/24/2008)

Chinese Seafarers Kick Pirate Ass The Chinese Navy has decided to send warships to help combat piracy off the Somali coast. Chinese fishing vessels and freighters have been hard hit by this year’s spike in piracy. In the meantime, one Chinese ship crew took the war on piracy into their own hands, using water hoses and Molotov cocktails to fight back pirates who had boarded their Shanghai-bound vessel.(War in Boring, 12/23/2008)

Axe vs. Pirates: Everyday Kenyans Suffering Effects of Somali Piracy When the giant cruise ships pull into Mombasa’s harbor and disgorge hundreds of Western tourists, souvenir vendors are there on the pier to greet them. The vendors’ curios — carvings of animals and wooden utensils — sell for $10 or more in a city where many workers earn just a few dollars per day. John Ngundo, 55, is a veteran of the curio trade in Mombasa. Lately, he said, business has declined. He blames his problems on the increase in piracy off the Somali coast. “We don’t get tourism coming into the port because people are afraid,” he said on Saturday morning as a few elderly Italians trickled past from the cruise ship Costa Europa. (War is Boring 12/21/2008)

Don’t Go to Somalia Last year I went to Somalia. All the journalists I talked to before leaving said it was a bad idea, and I would die. I didn’t die. That was then. This is now. Somalia has gotten so much worse in just the past year that now I’m the one telling other journalists not to go. But don’t take it from me. Consider this useful aid prepared by Rob Crilly of The Times:(War is Boring, 12/19/2008)

Axe vs. Pirates: The Kenya Connection Mombasa, southern Kenya’s sweltering port town is, in many ways, the center of gravity of the piracy war. While pirates themselves are based mostly in northern Somalia, hundreds of miles from here, the repercussions of piracy, and many of the higher-order command functions on both sides, play out in Mombasa. Many of the ships most threatened by pirates, fishing boats and coastal freighters, are home-ported in Mombasa. And as this is the major port in East Africa, many large vessels coming from or to Europe via the Suez Canal, braving pirate waters en route, call here. When a ship is released from pirates’ captivity after ransom is paid, it comes here first. In Mombasa is extensive infrastructure (ship’s agents, mariners’ unions, courts) to handle the aftermath of an act of piracy. (War is Boring, 12/18/2008)

Kenyan Navy Fires Rhetorical Broadside against Pirates The top Kenyan army officer staged a dramatic press conference in this port town on Monday, intending to strike fear in the hearts of Somali pirates that have waged an escalating war on shipping in African waters. "Any attempt to commit any act of piracy within Kenya will be resisted very strongly," Gen. Jeremiah Kianga, chief of the General Staff, told reporters at a Kenyan Air Force forward operating base adjacent to the Mombasa airport. "We want to send the message to would-be pirates that they risk being sunk."(World Politics Review, 12/17/2008)

Axe vs. Pirates: The Panic Button The ships that make the two-day run from Mombasa, Kenya, to Somalia carrying vital humanitarian supplies are frequent targets of pirate attacks, and have been for more than a decade. How have ship’s crew adapted? Same way the pirates have adapted over the years: with simple technology and no-nonsense tactics. (War is Boring, 12/16/2008)

Axe vs. Pirates: Scared onto Land by Pirate Close-Call Five years ago, Mwale escaped Mombasa’s maritime economy. He had been a fisherman, plying the waters as far north as the Somali borderland in search of tuna and other big fish. But with piracy taking root in lawless Somalia, fishing and sea trade were becoming riskier and less profitable by the day for the small operators. One of the final straws for Mwale was a close call, in 2002, with a band of 14 pirates that sneaked up on the 11-man refrigerator ship where Mwale was the chief engineer. (War is Boring, 12/15/2008)

Somali-Americans Joining Insurgency? Are Somali immigrants, living in the U.S., being drawn into their native country’s brutal Islamic insurgency? Minnesota TV network WCCO says some are. Three teenage boys, ages 17, 18 and 19 disappeared from their homes on Nov. 4 and “traveled together to Mogadishu,” WCCO reports. “[F]amily members fear the teens were brainwashed to return to Somalia to fight.” (War is Boring, 12/11/2008)

Axe vs. Pirates: Welcome to Mombasa It’s a centuries-old island port blessed with several deep-water channels. Mombasa, in southern Kenya, is the country’s second largest city with a population of 700,000 — and the economic engine not only for Kenya, but for many of the less-developed countries in the region. And it’s the furthest outpost in the war against piracy. Somalia, and that country’s thousands of high-tech pirates, lie just a few hundred miles north of Mombasa. The Kenyan port is the last stop for many ships that run the Somali gauntlet from south to north, aiming for the Red Sea and Europe. Ships coming north to south, having successfully evaded pirates, lay over in Mombasa to resupply or drop off cargo. And even ships that don’t make it at first, those that are seized by pirates wielding AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, eventually come to Mombasa after their owners pay million-dollar ransoms. (War is Boring, 12/10/2008)