generalspeaking

Hijacking The High Seas

Somalian pirates have become steadily increasingly bolder. They've been able to venture further out beyond the coastline of the country, interfering in shipping to a degree hitherto unimaginable. The wide, wide waters around the Horn of Africa are positively infested with pirates. They turn up with their mother ships, firing on alarmed targets, sending off the agile, small motorboats with well-armed pirates to board ship. And despite the alliance of countries currently with ships prowling the waters in an attempt to fend off pirate attacks, those attacks are continuing.

Those organized and well-armed pirates are currently holding eleven ships, and two hundred, sixty-four sailors to ransom from the ships' owners. The ransoms are eventually paid, freeing the hostages, and the ships and cargo to forge their tardy way to their destinations. Now news comes from a new Canadian intelligence document informing that the al-Qaeda-inspired, jihadist Al-Shabab in Somalia has forged a union with Somali pirates. A very well-remunerated one for fanatical Islamists.

The "relationship of convenience" has resulted in a partnership between the extremist Islamists and the Somali pirates, where Al-Shabab is engaged in training the hijackers in combat techniques and providing them with weapons, along with 'local protection' - specifically for the pirates of southern Somalia. The return is that Al-Shabab is able to claim a proportion of the spoils from successful plunder through ransom cash or seized weapons. With this alliance, international shipping has a new worry.

The current EU-sponsored anti-piracy operation patrolling shipping routes off the Horn of Africa has seen naval warships and aircraft deployed from the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece, escorting commercial ships through the Gulf of Aden. The United States, Canada, Russia and China also have a presence in the shipping lanes, with their vessels patrolling in search of attacks in progress to overpower the pirates, securing the release of attacked ships, or frightening them off with superior power, pre-attack.

The area to be patrolled, however, is huge, and cannot be adequately controlled to prevent all hijackings. And since the pirates have continued to venture further and further from their long coastline, they've been successful in targeting many ships for whom rescue is too late. Here, a double hazard presents itself; the hijacking of valuable cargo ships and the payment of costly ransoms to secure release, which has now extended to the funding of extremist jihadis.

Successful pirate attacks have increased over the past year, resulting in a total of 115, some of which were fended off, with a resulting 46 successes for the pirates. Those successful hijackings and their highly-remunerative ransoms have seen a troubling linking with terrorists, reflecting what is occurring elsewhere in the world. Where fundamentalist Islamists have turned to the proceeds to be realized in active involvement with drugs, slavery and prostitution.

All of these proceeds aiding the terrorists in furthering their activities. The absurdity of a fanatical religious group turning to the evils of bartering humans for slave labour and prostitution, of availing themselves of the proceeds of illegal narcotics, of gun-running, all of which activities should belie their religious convictions doesn't appear to have occurred to them. Anything is permitted in the name of the struggle to achieve worldwide religious-political ascendancy.

Al-Qaeda has graciously offered its encouragement and assistance to all groups seeking to emulate its successes in instilling terror in the minds of their targets. And, inspired by those fomentors of terror, Al-Shabab too has taken to the Internet to distribute its propaganda rap music videos, to inflate the romance of Islamist fighters attacking the infidels and the Zionists, inviting recruits to join the global battle for justice and global hegemony.

Labels: Political Realities, Religion, Terrorism, Traditions

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, December 03, 2009