U.S. MERCHANT SHIP HIJACKED

[aznyron]

Pak I get so much B/S sent to me by email that I get discouraged about my friends and there opinions about our sitting President when I never got one email attacking GWB when he was the sitting President
and most of the Americans including many who did not vote for him want him to succeed except for that other idiot Rush L. and if you took a world opinion of GWB he would not get 15% approval rating
and just remember the USA is considered the world leader and GWB alienated most of the leaders of the
world

[merchant seaman]

Maybe they get discouraged by yours. Every wonder why you get so many emails attacking Obama and never got one attacking GWB? By the way are you aware his initials are B O ?

[jackspratt]

Arjay, I thought I had explained I had received my post from a friend in the NIS (vi email) so there is no way for me to give you a 'link' - unless you want me to include his email address

C'mon paka, it's OK to do that.

But anyway, I managed to hack into your computer, and see that the email you refer to came from johnrambo@foxnews.com

[BobHelm]

Just in case anyone thinks it is only the USA navy that is taking action in the area...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8021795.stm

[aznyron]

BHO so what does that prove BTW my A/H friends vote Republican because of Former U.S. Senator Al (Tippy) D'Amato who comes from my village in New York it called Island Park do some research
& BTW I know him personally and I voted for him only because I knew him not because I thought he
was a good Senator and on another note the D. never ran any one worthy of my vote until 1998
when they ran chuck schumer and beat him I voted for Senator McCain I was living in AZ at that time

[Pakawala]

Dream on Jack... your imagined technical arrogance is only exceeded by your obvious political bias.

[cookie]

Russian destroyer captures 29 Somali pirates: reports

7 hours ago

MOSCOW (AFP) — A Russian naval destroyer on Tuesday seized 29 suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia, the defence ministry said, according to Russian news agencies.

"The Admiral Panteleev (destroyer) captured Tuesday at 1412 GMT a boat carrying pirates. In total, 29 people were arrested," the ministry said in a statement.

"Seven Kalachnikov machine-guns, handguns of different calibres, equipment including satellite navigation devices and a large number of empty shells were discovered on board the boat," the ministry said, adding that an investigation has been opened.

These arrests would dwarf the numbers seized in other recent operations by international military forces patrolling the waters off the Gulf of Aden in the last year.

The question of where any eventual trial for the 29 might take place will also come to the fore.

Trials relating to a spiralling upsurge in pirate attacks in the region over the last year are largely being hosted by Kenya, following agreements with the European Union, the United States and Britain.

Eleven Somalis are currently awaiting trial in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa for piracy after their high-seas arrest by the French navy deny.

But a Somali teenager captured by US forces in a high-seas drama is to stand trial in New York on piracy charges -- the first in the US for a century -- that could put him in jail for life.

Despite international naval missions -- including from NATO and the European Union -- ransom-hunting Somalis have tackled ever-bigger and more distant prizes.

Without an effective central government since 1991, Somali pirates are currently holding at least 16 ships and more than 250 seamen to ransom.

According to the International Maritime Bureau, pirate attacks off the lawless Horn of Africa nation increased tenfold in the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2008, jumping from six to 61.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... chQptRQpVw

[cookie]

NATO foils attack on Norwegian tanker

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090502/ts_ ... lia_piracy

NATO foils attack on Norwegian tanker
Reuters


By Alison Bevege Alison Bevege – 2 hrs 56 mins ago

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Portuguese warship Corte-Real captured, disarmed and briefly detained 19 pirates armed with high-explosives after they attempted to attack a Norwegian-owned oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, NATO officials said on Saturday.

Crude oil tanker MV Kition radioed for help on Friday afternoon after a skiff full of pirates brandishing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades approached them, said NATO Lieutenant Commander Alexandre Fernandes from on board the NATO warship.

Heavily armed pirates from Somalia have been attacking vessels in Indian Ocean shipping lanes and the Gulf of Aden, capturing dozens of vessels, kidnapping hundreds of hostages and raking in millions of dollars in ransoms.

"They were about 20 nautical miles south of us and we were the nearest warship, so we immediately scrambled our helicopter," said Fernandes.

Helicopter pilots Marco Coimbra and Pedro Gomes-Bras spotted the skiff and began tracking the pirates who fled the circling helicopter to the safety of their mothership.

The Portuguese escort frigate began hunting the mothership, a dhow with 19 heavily armed pirates aboard. After a high-speed chase the dhow was intercepted and by evening, eight marines managed to board the vessel.

The special forces discovered four 200g sticks of the chemical high-explosive P4A, four AK-47s and one rocket propelled grenade launcher with nine grenades, Fernandes said.

"It was almost a kilogram of high explosives," he said. "If used correctly it can open a hole in the hull of a ship and sink her."

"It is the first time we have spotted high explosives on board a pirate ship, normally they just stick to AK-47s and RPGs," Fernandes said, adding that he did not think the explosives signaled an escalation in violence.

"They thought they needed it, but an RPG is a more offensive weapon," he said.

There were no injuries reported and Fernandes said the pirates did not shoot at the Bahamas-flagged merchant vessel, the helicopter or the marines.

"They surrendered immediately," he said.

After consulting with Portuguese authorities, the Corte-Real, which was last week recalled from other duties to fight piracy in the Gulf, released the pirates, Fernandes said.

Each warship on NATO's anti-piracy mission Operation Allied Protector must comply with its national regulations on dealing with captured pirates.

Pirate attacks have disrupted U.N. aid supplies, driven up insurance costs and forced some firms to consider routing cargo between Europe and Asia around South Africa instead.

Many of the sea gangs are based in Puntland, which has been relatively peaceful compared with southern Somalia -- which has been mired in conflict for the last 18 years.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

[Pakawala]

They may have let them go but at least they took their weapons and hopefully game them a stern reprimand so I'm sure they won't do it again. You gotta love the way NATO handled this on.

[arjay]

Indeed...And probably gave them a hot meal, to send them on their way!!

They should sink the mother ship and any support boats and drop the pirates of at their next port of call, some remote uninhabited coral atoll 1000kms from anywhere!!

[Aardvark]

Just sink the Mother Ship and sail on, ---- em

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Kick them back to Puntland !!!

The pirate individual of Somalia
Khat-chewing former fisherman known as Garaad is the brains behind pirates' brawn
JAY BAHADUR

From Monday's Globe and Mail

April 26, 2009 at 7:49 PM EDT

BOSASSO, SOMALIA — When Gilbert and Sullivan composed their melodies about the pirate individual, it was doubtful they had a Somali like Garaad in mind. Yet this former fisherman, the man behind many of the recent hijackings in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, is as close as it comes to pirate royalty in the modern world.

In an interview on the breezy patio of a Somali hotel, he explains how he exerts direct control over 13 groups of pirates with a total of 800 hijackers, operating in bases stretching from Bosasso to Kismaayo, near the Kenyan border. Each group has a “sub-lieutenant” who reports directly to Garaad, and none of them make a move without his authorization.

An armchair CEO, Garaad is curiously uninterested in the fruits of his operation. “I don't know the names of any of the ships my men capture, and I don't care,” he says, “The only thing I care about is sending more pirates into the sea.”

Garaad is a name that has grown notorious in his own time – at least within the borders of Puntland, the autonomous region in northern Somalia that has spawned the recent pirate epidemic.

Garaad had agreed to the interview on the outskirts of the northern Somali port city of Bosasso, about six weeks before the high-profile hijacking of the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama. The interview was supposed to take place on the previous day, but after preliminary discussions in the morning, Garaad turned off his phone and disappeared. “He's off chewing khat somewhere,” suggests Mohamed, the interpreter who arranged the meeting, referring to the leafy narcotic religiously consumed by most pirates.

Much later, Garaad calls with his explanation: “I was busy,” he says.

The next day, he shows up at the gated entrance to the hotel, and meets on the restaurant patio at a table separated from its neighbours by a barrier of ferns and shrubs. With his freshly ironed dress shirt, pressed slacks, and his clean, cropped hair, Garaad blends right in with the crowd of Somali businessmen staying at the hotel. In contrast to his impeccable clothing, his face looks ragged for someone in his mid-30s, his eyes scratched raw by the constant rubbing – a textbook case of khat withdrawal.

Like many pirate headmen, Garaad hails from the infamous coastal pirate haven of Eyl. He began as a front-line pirate, participating directly in hijackings, but has since risen through the ranks to become one of the better known organizers and financiers in Puntland. As with most pirate handles, Garaad is a nickname, taken from the Somali word for “clan elder,” and is a sign of his status among his colleagues.

He instantly prickles when he hears the word pirate. “Illegal fishing ships, they are the real pirates” he says, insisting that his operations got going in 2002, with the sole objective of defending his livelihood and that of his fellow fishermen. So far, his crusade against the “real pirates” of Somalia has netted him a total of about a dozen captured illegal fishing ships, and an untold number of commercial vessels.

Garaad remains close-lipped about the dozens of hijackings he has reputedly financed, maintaining that seizing commercial vessels is a necessary evil in his private war against illegal fishing. “I've never personally attacked commercial ships,” he says. “The only one I've ever captured is the Stella Maris, and the reason for it was the financial problems we were having then.”

The MV Stella Maris, a Japanese-owned bulk carrier, was seized in the Gulf of Aden in July 2008 and held for eleven weeks before being released for a ransom of $2-million. Garaad's operating expenses since then must have been high, because he insists that he is broke. “I don't have one cent,” he says. “I don't even have a house.”

Despite his protestations of poverty, it's said that when he took his third bride, the wedding procession included 100 vehicles. And, there is a credible rumour that Garaad was involved with the much-reported hijacking of the MV Faina, the weapons-laden Ukrainian transport ship that fetched a generous $3.2-million ransom after a four-months hijacking. The story goes that in December of 2008, Garaad left Garowe, the region's capital, with a heavily armed convoy, aiming to relieve the Faina hijackers and bring them back to safety in Puntland.

They were in dire need of his assistance; forced by the U.S. Navy to anchor the captured ship at Xarardheere, south of the Puntland coast, the Americans proceeded to encircle and blockade the pirates onboard the Faina. On shore, the environment was equally hostile; Xarardheere is rival clan land, and thus was alien turf for the hijackers.

Completing the third point of this Bermuda triangle of perils was the proximity to al-Shabaab controlled territory, where militias from the Islamist group were waiting patiently inland to relieve the Faina pirates of any ransom they received the moment they came ashore. Into this melee allegedly charged Garaad with his Toyota-brand cavalry.

His intention, presumably, was to escort the hijackers to Puntland once they had secured the ransom payment for the Faina. Unfortunately, on his way to Xarardheere, Shabaab militants ambushed his motorcade, confiscating his weapons and vehicles. He was unharmed, and had to make the long journey back to Puntland, but wasn't discouraged from resuming pirating.

“If the international community ever pays us our rightful compensation for the illegal fishing,” he says, “attacks will stop within 48 hours.”

Jay Bahadur, a freelance reporter currently working on a book about Somali piracy, can be reached at piratesofpuntland@gmail.com

[Aardvark]

So how much compensation could he possibly want to stop a BILLION

[cookie]

Isn't there some kind of marine law that punishes pirates by execution????

Somali pirates hijack ship, navies capture 14
AFP
Published: Sunday May 3, 2009





Somali pirates said Sunday they hijacked a Pakistani-owned ship even as France and the Seychelles nabbed 14 more suspects in the intensifying international hunt for high-seas bandits.

The latest hijacking brings the pirates' haul since the start of the year to more than 30 vessels, at least 18 of which are still being held, together with around 300 seamen, close to a third of them Filipinos.

The MV Al-Misan was captured on Friday around 100 kilometres (60 miles) off the capital Mogadishu, said Ahmed Abdi, a pirate commander in the coastal village of Harardhere.

According to elders and traders in the region, it was transporting vehicles and commodities such as sugar and cooking oil for Somali traders and had been sailing from the United Arab Emirates.

"One of the two ships we hijacked ... is confirmed to have been chartered by Somali traders and there are already talks to release it. I think it will happen today," Ahmed Abdi told AFP by phone.

One Somali trader with a stake in the hijacked ship's cargo said he was hopeful the vessel would be released soon.

"There are efforts to free the ship and its crew, Somali traders and elders are already negotiating with the pirates and we are hopeful that they will soon release it," Abdullahi Moalim Barre told AFP.

The Pakistani authorities said no ship was registered under the name MV Al-Misan.

On Saturday, pirates in Haradhere said they had captured two ships.

One of them was confirmed as the MV Ariana, a bulk carrier transporting 35,000 tonnes of soya beans, with owners in Britain and Greece and a crew of 24 Ukrainians.

Confusion surrounded the identity of the second ship, however, with unconfirmed reports from pirate sources that it was a Ukrainian ship carrying UN vehicles, among other things.

The pirates are enjoying the last few days of favourable weather conditions, in between monsoon seasons that make approaching and boarding large ships with a high freeboard more difficult.

The world's naval powers are dispatching an ever-growing fleet of warships in response to a scourge which is threatening to disrupt one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes.

The French frigate Nivose captured 11 more pirates early Sunday near the Seychelles waters, after two small skiffs attacked it, apparently thinking the warship was a merchant vessel.

The Nivose moved into the sun to keep its cover and when the assailants were close enough, unleashed commandos on outboards and a helicopter to interdict the pirates.

Two assault rifles and an RPG were found on the skiffs.

The French navy has captured dozens of suspected pirates in recent weeks. Some were released for lack of evidence, the others transferred either to Somalia's breakaway region of Puntland or Kenya.

The Seychelles also announced Sunday that it had apprehended three suspected Somali pirates in its vast exclusive economic zone, which covers 1.3 million square kilometres in the Indian Ocean.

"The three men identified themselves as Somali. They were travelling in a six-metre skiff with several barrels of fuel and water onboard," a statement from the presidency said.

The Seychelles coast guard ship PS Andromache was alerted to the presence of suspected pirates in its waters by a warship from the European Union naval mission Atalanta on April 30 and caught the three on Saturday.

The operation brings to 12 the number of suspected pirates currently held by the Seychelles authorities following the capture a week earlier of nine Somalis believed to be behind an attack on an Italian cruise ship.

With foreign navies focusing their efforts on the Gulf of Aden, a key choking point for huge maritime traffic and a large proportion of the world's oil supplies, pirates have hunted their prey further out into the Indian Ocean.

Somalia's marauding sea-jackers have struck several hundred nautical miles from the East African coast and lately carried out several attacks in the Seychelles' waters.

The archipelago, whose economy relies heavily on tourism and luxury cruises, has voiced great concern at the trend.

[Michael C]

I just got this from a close friend who was in the NIS (Naval Intelligence Service) and still has many contacts there... It's an interesting read from the 'horse's mouth' - enjoy.

Pakawala, NIS is Naval Investigative Service or now more appropriately called, but less frequently called NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service). These people investigate crimes within the U.S. Navy and U.S.Marine Corps and are in no way involved with gathering or working with intelligence, except in a limited counterintelligence role (keeping a watch on Navy and Marine Corps personnel).

If your close friend was telling you he is working with active operational intelligence, he is not much of a friend, because he has been feeding you quite a bit of misinformation.

[Pakawala]

Thanks for that Michael, I'll be sure and tell him right away.

[cookie]

.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ma ... es-network

This is London – the capital of Somali pirates' secret intelligence operation

• Hub of informants plotting attacks, says leaked report
• Several recent hijackings orchestrated from UK

* Giles Tremlett
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 May 2009 20.39 BST

For the 14 crew aboard the Karagöl, a ­Turkish chemical tanker churning through the lawless waters of the Gulf of Aden, it was the moment all seafarers dread: heavily armed Somali pirates were speeding towards the slow-moving cargo vessel, and there was no chance of escape.

The Turkish sailors were swiftly overpowered and the 5,850-ton tanker was diverted to a port in Somalia, where it was held for two months while its owners negotiated a ransom payment.

What the crew could not know was that their ship had been singled out as a target by a network of informers based several thousand miles away – in London. Security officials say well-placed informants in the British capital, the world centre of shipbroking and insurance, gather so much detail on targets that, in the case of the Karagöl, they not only knew its layout, route and cargo, but had spent several days practising the assault.

The attack on the Turkish ship was a sign that the pirates have turned a regional phenomenon into a global criminal business that now reaches into the heart of London's shipping community.

"They made regular calls from the ship to London," said Haldun Dincel, general manager of Turkey's Yardimci shipping company, who negotiated the release of their ship. The calls were made on satellite phones the pirates brought with them.

Speaking by telephone from Istanbul, Dincel said today that London was one of a number of centres the pirates contacted regularly after the tanker had been sailed to the Somali coast and senior gang members had boarded and taken control. "Every day the chief of the pirates got in touch with people from London, Dubai and some from the Yemen," he said.

At least one of the four or five major pirate groups that are now carrying out the attacks has London-based "consultants" to help them choose their targets, according to a European military intelligence report leaked to Spain's Cadena SER radio station yesterday.

The report has been circulated around those countries, including Britain, that are involved in the European Union's Operation Atalanta to protect ships against piracy in the area. It indicated that the hijacking of at least three vessels, including the Karagöl, the Greek cargo ship Titan and Spanish tuna trawler Felipe Ruano, followed tipoffs from the London-centred network of informers, according to Cadena SER.

In each case, according to the report, the pirates had full knowledge of the cargo, nationality and course of the vessel.

It is not clear who these ­"consultants" were, but Dincel believes they may work inside the industry. "They knew the ­vessel, they knew the cargo, they knew the loading ports, they knew the destination, they knew everything," he said. "The knew their job."

Andrew Mwangura, who heads the East African's Seafarer's Assistance Programme, a piracy monitoring group based in Mombassa, Kenya, said negotiations over hijacked ships often involve Somalis in London. "Not only for the Karagöl, but for many other ships, the negotiations involve people in London," he said.

The EU report said information being passed to the pirates was often extracted from the international organisations that control or track the world's shipping.

The national flag of the vessel was also taken into account when choosing a target, with British vessels apparently being increasingly avoided, the report said.

"We have heard this a lot. It strikes me as plausible," said Graeme Gibbon-Brooks, of Dryad Maritime Intelligence, last night. "They are getting more sophisticated because they are funded by criminal gangs from outside of Somalia."

He warned, however, that while pirates might receive information on individual targets from London and elsewhere it was still difficult to locate a ship in mid-ocean. Pirates were more likely to receive lists of potential targets so they could identify one if they came across it, he said.

Dincel said he suspected the pirates' informers had also infiltrated the authorities who run the Suez canal, enabling them to track the Karagöl's movements from the moment it left the canal.

Dincel himself spoke several times a day to one of two pirate negotiators who had both lived in the US. "One said he had lived there for 10 years," he said. "The other had graduated from a US college. The ship's master also said they were educated people."

Dincel said the chief negotiator had told him over the telephone that all young Somalis wanted to become pirates. "He said that he had a car, money and a house. He has everything and the young people see him, and naturally they ask to be pirates." In January, Yardimci eventually airlifted money to the pirates to secure the release of the Karagöl and its cargo.

[aznyron]

sea going MAFIA it sounds like they got the oars well placed in the water

[cookie]

Somali gunmen 'renounce piracy'
Handout photo from Spanish ministry of defence shows suspected pirates on a capsized boat on 6 May 2009 in the Indian Ocean
Chaotic Somalia's lack of government has allowed piracy to flourish

Around 200 Somali pirates are reported to have renounced piracy at a meeting in northern Somalia.

Members of the group met local leaders and Somali expatriates in Eyl, in the autonomous region of Puntland, and promised to halt their activities.

Pirate representative Abshir Abdullah told the BBC he urged other groups to free ships in return for amnesty.

Pirates have been coming under pressure from local leaders, who have accused them of corrupting their communities.

Somalia has been without a stable government since 1991, allowing piracy to flourish.

See map of how piracy is affecting the region and countries around the world

The problem worsened in the first months of 2009 despite patrols by foreign navies.

Last week, Somalia's interim government asked for international help to set up a national coastguard to help tackle piracy, and protect fishermen from illegal foreign fishing boats and to prevent dumping of toxic materials.


I'm aware now these acts are wrong in Islamic teachings
Pirate chief Abshir Abdullah

Chasing the piracy money trail
Pirates in the dock

Mr Abdullah, a well-known pirate chief in Puntland, says his group is not holding any ships at present and the authorities have agreed to give them amnesty for previous hijackings.

"I see myself as someone who has been saved from bad deeds," he told the BBC's Somali Service.

"I understand the wrong things that I was involved in and I'm aware now these acts are wrong in Islamic teachings.

Mr Abdullah says he has agreed to work with local leaders to get other pirates to give up what can be a lucrative life on the high seas.

"I will advise those who want to go to sea, they must not do it and I hope they will stop it as we have agreed.

"The ones who are holding ships now, I would call them to release them and they ought not to do it again."

[/size]Meanwhile, a Nato warship in the Gulf of Aden has intercepted two boats carrying suspected pirates and has disarmed them, AP news agency reports.

A Canadian frigate chased the two boats and eventually boarded them.

Nato says it found a large amount of firearms and rocket-propelled grenades, as well as equipment such as hook ladders.

The suspected pirates were released after the equipment was confiscated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8066996.stm

[beer monkey]

.


How about a pirate killing holiday......

BLOODTHIRSTY tourists are paying £3,500 a day to join PIRATE-KILLING cruise ships.

They board private yachts secretly armed to the teeth with grenade launchers, AK47 machine guns and rockets.

Then they cruise slowly between Djibouti in Somalia to Mombasa in Kenya hoping to attract the attention of pirates.

If attacked, the Russian tourists - and ex-special forces troops who sail with them - open fire.

Yachtsman Vladimir Mironov said: "They are worse than the pirates - just paying to murder