Terror Region: The Pirate Corridor

Source: canada

 

An armed Somali pirate stands along the coastline while the Greek cargo ship, MV Filitsa, is seen anchored just off the shores of Hobyo town in northeastern Somalia where it's being held by pirates, in this January 7 picture. A six-nation East African regional bloc on February 1 urged Somalia's two breakaway regions of Puntland and Somaliland to jointly battle Islamist militia which it said had extended to the areas.

Photograph by: Mohamed Dahir, AFP/Getty Images

While Western armies were embroiled in long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Islamic extremists and pirates in Somalia closed ranks. Ragtag high seas bandits that were a mere annoyance to international shipping 10 years ago have evolved into a major threat.

Pirate groups now supply Islamists with weapons, and in return receive combat training from terrorist groups. Islamist militia Al-Shabaab is believed to "tax" 20 to 50 per cent of the profits of pirates operating in zones under its control.

Increased co-operation with pirates has allowed Islamist groups to learn the ways of high seas hijacking.

Somali pirate skiffs now choke the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, waiting to attack passing ships. There are indications Somali pirates receive intelligence on the cargos of individual ships, helping them intercept the most lucrative prey.

Having captured large, seaworthy "motherships" with far greater range than inshore skiffs, Somali pirates have radically expanded their area of operations. Somali pirates now prowl as far as 1,000 kilometers into the Indian Ocean, and as far south as Mozambique.

Pirate weapons are mostly of Soviet design, and include the AK-47 assault rifle, PKM machine gun and RPG-7 man-portable rocket. Bigger shares of the booty go to those pirates who brought the biggest guns, which are often used to intimidate crews before boarding.

Despite the weaponry, pirates tend not to kill the crews of the ships they capture, preferring to collect million-dollar ransoms. Captives are generally brought on land, where they are kept safe from rescue until payment.

Insurance rates have increased startlingly in recent years for ships passing through this important trade corridor linking the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans. By 2008, insurance rates became so high that global shipping giant Maersk rerouted its oil tanker traffic around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the pirate corridor.

The NATO-led counter piracy naval task force has proven mostly toothless. Pirates typically often throw their guns overboard before capture, leaving little evidence for use at trials. As a result, pirates intercepted by Western navies are often released on the spot.

Frustrated, London-based insurance giant Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group has launched a high-speed private navy to defend its ships passing through pirate alley.

The proliferation of Somali piracy is having a major spillover effect on southern neighbour Kenya, which has struggled to help with pirate incursions into its national waters.

In an effort to curb piracy, Kenyan courts accepted over 100 Somali pirates detained by the allied naval task force, and agreed to prosecute and incarcerate them. But this decision has made Kenya - and in particular the jails where pirates are kept - high-priority targets for pirates keen to free their compatriots. Intimidated by the security threat from the pirates, a lack of support from Western allies, and mounting costs of incarceration, Kenya stopped accepting pirate transfers in 2010.

More than a dozen ships and hundreds of captives are held in Somalia at any given moment, as ransom dollars continue to flow into pirate and terrorist coffers alike.