Maersk Alabama incident has people thinking about Somalia

As the Maersk Alabama sails to Mombasa and the USS Bainbridge keeps an eye on the pirates holding Captain Richard Phillips in a lifeboat, there is quite a bit of talk online and on air about the incident, and what to do about things. Many of the comments posted on media websites seem to involve a lot of "Let's go get the pirates with our guns" sort of sensibility, a reflection of the frustrations being felt. The number of postings that suggest putting cannons or other heavy weaponry aboard merchant vessels is staggering. But this isn't going to happen and reveals a lack of understanding about civilian mariners' lives at sea and the various national laws that prevent the arming of merchant vessels.

Then there are the comments posted by would-be experts positing their theories on what's caused piracy to become so endemic off the Horn of Africa and how the law could be applied. Many of these 'legal perspectives' are misguided, or just wrong, and a number otherwise smart people seem to be rushing to provide their own perspectives on the situation without understanding the broader picture.

For instance, there have been a number of sources that consider the Maersk Alabama incident to be an indication that piracy off East Africa is escalating. This appears to be based on the fact that it was an American-flagged vessel with American crew that was attacked. I, however, don't see it in that manner. The Alabama fell victim to a continuing threat that has seen five other vessels recently hijacked. An escalation is when pirates attack a new type of vessel - such as a cruise ship, a supertanker or a vessel laden with munitions and weaponry - or when mariners are injured or killed, or when piracy becomes a source of funding for terrorists. Box ships have been attacked before (and probably will be again), but I seriously doubt the pirates who boarded the Alabama knew the crew was American or targeted them purely because of their nationality.

On the positive side of all these discussions is the growing understanding that to effectively deal with piracy in the region, we need to deal with Somalia itself. Paul Reynolds, BBC News website's world affairs correspondent, has written a piece that suggests adopting a 19th Century approach to things, when gunboat diplomacy was a norm. He quotes Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, who said, in 1841, "Taking a wasps' nest...is more effective than catching the wasps one by one." Right now that's what all those naval vessels are doing: swatting at individual wasps, so to speak.

(Reynolds also seems to imply in his piece that what's needed are naval commanders more willing to bend the rules when engaging pirates, much like Commodore Stephen Decatur did when the U.S. was battling Barbary Pirates in 1815. He also states that convoys are currently in use for aid vessels going to Kenya and Somalia, which is not completely correct. A warship shadowing a merchant vessel carrying food aid from Mombasa to Somalia doesn't really qualify as a convoy.)

Over at National Review Online, David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey posted a short piece that points out the reluctance of nations to root out the Somali pirate lairs ashore. This is the most effective way to suppress piracy, and has worked over the centuries. However, the likelihood that troops from the U.S. will go ashore in Somalia seems remote, at this stage (to say nothing of forces from Canada, Britain or France). And the African Union troops that have been deployed have proven virtually useless. But without a stabilizing force that is robust in its mandate and accompanied by the suitable political and economic clout to re-build Somalia's vacant infrastructures, the threat of continued violence - both at sea and on land - will continue.

I am, however, not advocating the wholesale invasion of Somalia by foreign troops; it's a far more complex situation than that. Indeed, the most effective stabilizing force would be one that is Somali in origin, not foreign. An excellent look at the domestic situation in Somalia was written last month by Graham Cooke for The Diplomat. Entitled "The Impact of Somali Piracy", it details the perspectives of a number of experts, and looks at the risks created by using force against the Somali pirates, as well as the risks of doing nothing. It also explores the potential threats posed by Islamists in Somalia, and their links to pirate gangs.

If this all seems complicated, it's because it is. But as Chatham House's Roger Middleton is quoted in The Diplomat piece, "[O]ne option the international community does not have is to ignore the problem."

Maersk Alabama update:

Bloomberg is reporting that reinforcements have set out from Somalia to provide some sort of assistance to their pirate brethren who are holding Capt. Phillips hostage. Hope they have enough fuel for the trip there and back, though one has to wonder whether they'll even get close to the scene, what with naval vessels in the area.

Also, Reuters reports that the U.N. special representative for Somalia wants the international community to do more to trace the money trail used by pirates in order to quash their financial backers.

Below is today's update of attacks off Somalia from NATO:

Maersk Alabama crew repels pirates

AP is reporting that the American crew of the container ship Maersk Alabama has regained control of their vessel after an attack by Somali pirates earlier today. Word of this was given to AP by the father of the vessel's second-in-command, who spoke with his son aboard Maersk Alabama via telephone. The report also has an unnamed U.S. official saying that the American crew are holding one of the pirate attackers, while three more fled overboard.

American mariners seized by pirates

A U.S.-flagged container ship, the Maersk Alabama, was hijacked earlier this morning while sailing about 500 kilometres off the coast of Somalia. In a statement from the vessel's owners, Maersk Line Limited, the vessel was said to have been en route to Mombasa from Djibouti at the time of the attack. The crew consists of 20 Americans and the ship's home port is Norfolk, VA.. The seizure of Maersk Alabama is the sixth such incident in less than a week. According to Maersk, the eleven-year-old vessel was carrying 400 containers of food aid, some of which was destined for the UN's World Food Programme.

The BBC's East Africa correspondent, Peter Greste, wonders whether the American hostages will receive the same treatment that Somali pirates have shown previous captives. According to the BBC report, "Somalia is largely under the control of a group with links to al-Qaeda, our correspondent says, and they may choose to make a political point out the situation." And while I beg to differ about the assessment that Somalia is, indeed, largely controlled by Islamists, I do agree that should al-Shabaab become involved in this situation, piracy-for-ransom may not be the outcome of this incident.

How to Beat the Somali Pirates

EagleSpeak yesterday presented an exceedingly lucid perspective on measures that could be emplaced to deter further attacks by pirates off the Horn of Africa, promulgating the idea of increased use of convoys to protect commercial ships in the region. Some shippers are already doing so, but a greater use of this time-tested process could definitely help alleviate future attacks.

There are many ideas being put forth about how to address the situation in the waters off the Horn of Africa, and before I add my own thoughts to EagleSpeak's opinions, I'd like to comment on a piece posted on the Foreign Affairs website by blogger Elizabeth Dickinson. Entitled "Pirates on a spree", it sums up what a number of people are feeling, especially in light of the hijacking of at least five vessels in the last two days. However, in my estimation she only gets things about half right.

Dickinson wonders,"How are a bunch of former fisherman (sic) defeating the world's navies?", which is wholly incorrect. Somali pirates are by no means defeating navies, for they go out of their way to avoid encounters with warships patrolling the region's seas. Indeed, pirates there are not 'defeating' anyone - they are threatening and attacking mariners in a manner intended to maintain the inflow of money to the various gangs and warlords who control these criminal ventures. Unlike, for instance, terrorist groups, pirates do not wish to defeat or vanquish an enemy; they wish to exploit a resource - ships and seafarers - on an ongoing basis.

Dickinson also brings up what she calls the "grievance theory", the idea that Somalis are "pissed" about over-fishing and the illegal dumping of toxic waste in the Indian Ocean, though she sums this up with the odd sentence, "Don't dump your waste on Somali soil if you don't want to get wasted at sea, apparently." I'm not sure what she means by that, but, regardless, the issue of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (known as IUU), and the dumping of toxic waste, is nothing new to the seas off Somalia. These activities go back well over a decade and have, at times, been done with the complicity of Somali warlords. You simply can't extract bribes, or "permits", on the one hand and then decry the despoiling that comes from allowing such activities on the other. If Somalis were out patroling their maritime economic zone and protecting fishing vessels - their own and foreign - or detering waste dumpers by reporting their activitiesto the international community, that would be an entirely different matter. But the cloak of environmental protectors sometimes put forth just doesn't fly with me.

However, Dickinson is spot on when she says that Somali pirates are venturing further offshore to avoid naval patrols and are continuing to pirate because there's no other viable, economic option available. But, most importantly, she offers a view I've already taken about the confusion arising from so many nations sending so many vessels into the foray.

To add to EagleSpeak's views, I would suggest that we need a more comprehensive and organized international response to piracy off the Horn of Africa. This is the only situation in current times in which such disparate elements as NATO, the EU, Russia, China and India have shown a willingness to work together to combat a low-level conflict, which is what piracy is. But the command and control structures are overlapping, reducing overall capabilities. It is vital that this be addressed.

And as to the big issue - dealing with the land-based commanders who send pirates out - it is clear that no one wants to send troops into Somalia itself. So, instead, I offer the suggestion that the international community work with the younger generation of Somalis, many of whom live in the West and hold little fondness for their elders, the members of the TFG and other groups that have done little to provide leadership in Somalia.

Two opportunities exist to augment convoys and patrolling warships: A more effective, coordinated multinational leadership and support for the younger generation of Somalis willing to put aside the sins of their fathers. Somalia today is a litmus test of how the international community can address age old problems in a completely modern, 21st century manner. To be sure, commercial shipping is being affected by the plight of piracy, but there are currently no other strategic imperatives there which might diffuse political objectives, such as oil, gas or terrorists. But there is the potential to suppress piracy in the seas off the Horn and support East African security without adding Somalia to the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan. Unaddressed, though, Somalia's criminal elements will prove far more costly to us than any ransom ever paid.

Tamil Tigers fight on from the sea

EagleSpeak posted a lengthy piece yesterday about the recent encounter between Sri Lankan navy and those of the Tamil Tigers' sea forces. As the BBC also says, at least four Tamil Sea Tiger vessels out of a group of some ten were destroyed in an engagement at the start of the weekend, with at least 11 Sea Tigers killed by the government forces.

None of this is about piracy, per se, but it is about the continuing use of the seas as a warfront. For the last few months, the Sri Lankan government has been reporting that their assaults on Tamil strongholds in the north of the island nation were proving exceptionally succesful in pushing the Tigers - the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) - into a position of non-existence. Yet the Tigers seem to be fighting on.

Putting aside, for the moment, political considerations, it's easy to see how a group of people would find ways to defend what they see as their homeland. They are sterotypically waging a g guerrilla war, and the use of the seas is, in this case, a viable option in furthering their goals.

Pushed into a corner, anyone might fight with all they have. And while the LTTE are waging a political campaign, this does beg some questions about what pirates, such as in Somalia, might do should we ever begin to go ashore and deal with their havens in that region.

Yemeni suicide bombers being trained in Somalia?

A couple of weeks ago, on March 15, four South Koreans were killed by a suicide bomber as the tourists were visiting the historic Yemeni town of Shibam, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Speaking to Reuters, an unnamed Yemeni security official claimed the bomber - Abdel Rahman Mehdi al-Aajbari - had been recently trained in Somalia to carry out the attack. The official said that Aajbari had left his home in western Yemen about two months ago.

Meanwhile, The Long War Journal's Jane Novak reports that al-Qaeda has claimed responsiblity for this suicide bombing. Her article, "Yemen's three terror fronts", also details a second, unsuccessful attack in the capital city of Sana'a, carried out three days after Aabjari's deadly bombing. In this incident, South Korean investigators and family of the deceased tourists were targeted as they drove in a convoy of cars by another suicide bomber. Novak writes that al-Qaeda's internet statement says these attacks are part of an effort to "expel the infidels from the Arabian Peninsula".

Paying Somalis to stop piracy?

Last week, my colleague EagleSpeak posted word of a British security analyst's view about what might be done to subdue to piracy off Somalia (see also the EU NAVFOR Somalia website quoting from Fairplay). Simon Sole, the CEO of Exclusive Analysis, told the Connecticut Maritime Association-sponsored Shipping 2009 conference that, "[H]e expected Middle Eastern nations – which have been the hardest hit by the pirate scourge – will likely pay the ‘junior’ unit of Somalia’s Islamic Courts to re-subdue the seagoing criminals." The junior unit Sole was referring to is al-Shabaab, the Islamist group that currently controls significant parts of southern Somalia and, according to him, are expected to overrun Mogadishu within months.

I have never met Sole nor come across any of his analyses of piracy in the last three-plus years I've been immersed in investigating the issue, so I was somewhat surprised by his comments. His company website says he "built Exclusive Analysis upon a strong ethos based around accuracy and objectivity", which makes these recent comments all the more odd.

To begin with, Middle Eastern nations have not been the hardest hit by pirates. A glance at the IMB's 2008 piracy report will quickly show that it is European and Asian nations that have been hardest hit. Ships controlled or managed in those regions have been by far the unluckiest victims of pirate attacks, with Germany (41 incidents) leading the pack. They're followed by Singapore (31), Greece (23), Japan, (16) and Great Britain and Norway (tied at 12).

Next, characterizing al-Shabaab as a 'junior' unit of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) is also incorrect, as the former organization has little but scorn for the latter group. As has been made patently clear to me from sources, al-Shabaab has devolved from the ICU, thinking that a new approach must be taken to assure an orthodox form of Islam may come to pass in Somalia. (See also Ryan Mauro's incisive piece on FrontPageMagazine.com about what he calls the African Axis.)

But more critically, I find it hard to believe that MidEast nations would bother to pay al-Shabaab, or anyone else in Somalia, for a number of reasons.

For one, nation states do not, generally speaking, offer monetary incentives to criminals to cease their activities. Doing so would create greater instability by these actions, and no matter what you might think about Iran or Saudi Arabia, they are players in the international community and realize their obligations. If Sole's proposition is correct, why aren't we paying narco-terrorists in South America to stop making cocaine or the Taliban to stop harvesting poppies? We don't because it goes against our national principles.

Secondly, what advantage comes from some MidEast countries paying 'protection money' to Somali pirates? Well, there's really no reason to do so. It's currently cheaper to have the shipping community - owners and insurers - bear the financial responsibilities of pirate attacks. Why shell out, say, $100 million to al-Shabaab when they're currently only netting about a tenth of that from recent incidents?

Thirdly, if these Middle Eastern states do opt to pay al-Shabaab to stop pirating, what 'coverage' applies? Will only vessels from Gulf States be exempt from future attacks? Does that mean vessels flagged in the Gulf or operated from there? What about German or Singaporean ships? The potential to set up a tiered system is great, in which some vessels are allowed free passage whle others are potential targets. But given the libertarian nature of commerical shipping, this becomes a grey area, as a freighter managed by a Dubai-based firm could be flagged in the Marshall Islands and crewed by Sri Lankans. Is it exempt?

Finally, what guarantees are there - really - that al-Shababbb wouldn't just take the money and run? This is a group seeking an extreme form of Islam for Somalia, and which is willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. They may want to stamp out piracy when they take power, but are quite happy to receive funding from its avails now. There are no firm and fast rules in place in Somalia, and Mr. Soles should have known this before making his comments last week.

It's vitally important to be 'objective' about these issues, as much as possible. Telling shippers these sort of things isn't right, not without proper background. Perhaps I am missing something here and Soles has more information to expand on this. I welcome hearing from him, as the situation in Somalia is dire.