The Scourge of Somalia’s Seas

The United States and its allies have made periodic attempts to battle the pirates using a group of eight warships from the United States, Canada, Europe and Pakistan that patrol the region looking for terrorists. But a recent trip aboard the French frigate E.V. Jacoubet in the Gulf of Aden illustrated the problems the al-lies face. The Jacoubet is heavily armed and can track vessels hundreds of kilometers away.

But the high-tech gear goes only so far, says Yannick Bossou, the ship's commander. The real trick is spotting the pirates before they strike. The Gulf of Aden, which separates the Horn of Africa from the Arabian Peninsula, is crowded with small fishing boats and motorized cargo dhows that provide easy cover. The buccaneers typically disguise themselves, pile aboard a large dhow and then sail up to 240km out to sea in search of slow-moving, low-hulled prey. Having spotted a target, they launch two or three motorized skiffs, use ropes and grappling hooks to climb aboard, and subdue the crew, using automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. Former hostages report that the bandits mix the modern and the medieval. They've been known to slaughter goats to roast on captured ships and spend much of their time chewing the narcotic leaf khat. But they also use GPS devices, satellite phones and spies in nearby ports such as Dubai and Djibouti to find their victims.

Further complicating matters, once the pirates make it back to Somali waters with their booty, they're generally scot-free. The current location of the Stella Maris, for example, is well known—it's being held off the village of Ely in northeastern Somalia by pirates who have reportedly demanded a $3 million ransom. But few militaries, seeing how the Americans and more recently the Ethiopians have been burned there, have the means or the stomach to pursue the bandits into the lawless and heavily armed country. With the exception of a daring French commando raid in April that captured six pirates involved in the seizure of a French luxury yacht, pirates in Somalia proper are almost never targeted. It's a place "where some nations have gotten a bloody nose," says Bob Davidson, a Canadian naval officer who commands the allied warships that patrol the region. "It might be simple to say, 'We know where they are—why don't you just go get them?' But you've got to have law, firepower and [be willing to] risk collateral damage."

Given the qualms of foreign powers, military officers agree that little will improve until progress is made in Somalia itself. The problem "has to be solved on land," says Gérard Valin, the French admiral who oversaw the April raid. And at the moment, there's little hope of that. The transitional government grows weaker by the day, and is riven by infighting between the president (a former warlord) and the prime minister.

All that is good news for the pirates, who, given the number of attacks, seem to be expanding their operations by the day. The boom isn't surprising, for piracy is a lucrative business: Siyad Mohammed, a leader of one of the pirate gangs, told Reuters recently that his group managed to earn a $750,000 ransom after releasing a German ship hijacked in May. That's an enormous take in a country teetering on the edge of famine. But while it may enrich a small few, such banditry on the high seas promises more misery for Somalia—yet another calamity for a place that has already suffered much.

© 2008