Whereas the attacks on merchant shipping vessels had been sporadic, they have greatly increased in recent months. This latest attack seized a 1000ft oil tanker carrying 2 million barrels of oil. Ironically, the pirates have no refining capacity (and they would have a difficult time selling the oil), but they are holding the 25-member crew for ransom.
Apparently their plan of ransoming captured crew members has paid well:
The strategy is effective: A report last month by a London-based think tank said pirates have raked in up to $30 million in ransoms this year alone.
In Somalia, pirates are better-funded, better-organized and better-armed than one might imagine in a country that has been in tatters for nearly two decades.
This is surely only a testiment to my youth and idealism, but somehow the knowledge that there are pirates to be fought in some part of the world is very encouraging.
The British Royal Navy has been involved in anti-pirate operations as well:
Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles.
Their success has been due partly to that quality which has always allowed pirates to succeed: elusiveness.
Having to patrol an area as large as that which the pirates are currently operating in is too expensive, which allows the pirates opportunities to strike in areas where the merchant ships must rely on their own security forces. (knowing that they will be ransomed instead of killed no doubt discourages them from fighting to the last man)
Man, that article was fun to write!
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1 comment:
It's amazing how after 300 years, some things never change. Pirates are just as much trouble as they were (though they get less press), and getting away in the same ways they were.
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