Somali pirates hold US Navy at bay

An update of the unfolding drama of the pirates holding a U.S. ship captain hostage off the coast of Somalia.

NAIROBI — The full might of the U.S. Navy — warships bristling with torpedoes, missiles, helicopters and surveillance drones — is aligned against a lifeboat adrift in the Indian Ocean, on which four pirates armed with rifles hold an American ship’s captain captive.

The FBI and the Pentagon are helping the officers of the U.S.S. Bainbridge to negotiate with the pirates to secure release of the captain. The captain’s ship, the Maersk Alabama, is steaming off toward the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

The world has learned a great deal about Capt. Richard Phillips, from Vermont, who gave himself up to protect his 20 crewmen and his ship. No matter how this drama ends, we know who is the hero.

But who are the Somali pirates holding the U.S. Navy at bay?

If it is like the other six pirate hijackings this month, they are most likely young, unemployed men hired by local clan leaders and lured by the prospect of cash — hundreds of thousands of dollars of it. They can use the cash to build a mansion, buy a four-wheel-drive vehicle and marry a wife in lavish style.

Piracy has become the country’s most lucrative industry, according to the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia. Last year 42 ships were hijacked off the Somali coastline and the ransoms paid for the ships and their cargo are estimated at more than $50 million.

Among the ships ransomed last year was a Ukrainian freighter carrying 33 military tanks and a Saudi-owned tanker carrying crude oil estimated to be worth $100 million. The pirates are currently holding for ransom 16 ships with 200 crew.  

The pirate gangs have pulled in substantial amounts of money with surprisingly little violence. Because the cargo ships are generally unarmed and crews are under instructions not to fight against the pirates, the casualties on both sides have been relatively low.

Not all the pirate attacks are successful. In 2008 the pirates tried to hijack more than 110 ships, of which 42 were actually taken over. Because Somalia is without a functioning government, pirates that have been captured are often handed over to Kenyan authorities. They then stand trial in that country. 

Today the pirate groups are well organized and disciplined. But it wasn’t always so.

The pirates emerged out of coastal fishing communities, which watched for years as illegal foreign trawlers plundered Somalia’s fish-stocked waters and foreign ships dumped toxic waste where no one would stop them. The early pirate attacks were aimed at exacting an ad hoc tax from the illegal trawlers. Later, the pirates discovered the more lucrative business of kidnapping.

The pirates are clan-based militias with fluid memberships backed by onshore financiers, often clan leaders and government officials. Many of these leaders come from Puntland, the northern Somali region that abuts the Gulf of Aden and has become the epicenter of piracy.

The financiers front the money for salaries, speedboats, engines, fuel, guns, ammunition, satellite phones, handheld global positioning systems, portable radar equipment, binoculars, grappling hooks and ladders. Teams of between four and eight pirates then set off.

Somalia’s coastline provides a parade of targets. Every year more than 20,000 ships en route to and from the Suez Canal sail through a channel only 200 miles across at its widest point. They are within easy reach of the Somali pirate networks based in the towns of Bossaso, Eyl, Hobyo, Harardheere and Mogadishu.

Dusty, sleepy fishing villages have been transformed into pirate havens, where expensive Land Cruisers ply the unpaved roads, beachside villas replace tin-roofed shacks and successful pirates celebrate by marrying new wives with bountiful feasts. 

As the international community has increased its patrols of the Gulf of Aden, the pirates have extended their range into the Indian Ocean. “Mother ships” take the pirates out to sea to where they launch the small motorboats that attack the lumbering container ships and oil tankers. The Maersk Alabama, for example, was attacked 340 miles out to sea.

Invariably ship owners pay the ransom, often $1 million, sometimes more depending upon the value of the cargo. Half the bounty goes to the financiers and sponsors of the pirate gangs, according to sources in the pirate town of Eyl. The pirates themselves then share about $300,000, and the rest is distributed among land-based gunmen and the local community.

The first pirate to board a ship is rewarded for his bravery with a double share, or a vehicle, and that compensation is paid to the family of a pirate who dies, according to Somali sources.

A debate is raging over whether pirate cash might help fund the Islamic extremists, known as al-Shabaab, who control large parts of Somalia and have links to Al Qaeda. But so far pirates have shown more interest in money than ideology.

The fact that Somali imams have forbidden piracy and that attacks plummeted during the brief reign of the Islamic Courts Union in 2006 suggests that far from funding Islamists, the Islamists might be the answer to stopping piracy.

The piracy, and especially the new attention as a result of the attack on the U.S. ship, has provoked calls for increased patrolling of the waters by naval warships and the arming of the crews of merchant ships.

But others argue that the solution to the piracy lies not in increased militarization but in negotiating a solution to Somalia’s chaotic political situation.

“The naval task force is incapable of stopping piracy,” said Rashid Abdi, Somalia analyst at the International Crisis Group in Nairobi. “Unless you make Somalia work you cannot tackle piracy. The focus should be on a political solution to the Somali crisis.”

 More GlobalPost dispatches on Somalia:

Is there a solution for Somalia? 

Somali refugees path of hardship

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