Somali Lawlessness Spills Into the Sea
Modern-Day Pirates Strike for Ransom and Cargo

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 2, 2006

MOMBASA, Kenya -- Under cover of darkness off the coast of Somalia, a gang of pirates turned off the engines to their three small speedboats, linked a ladder to an Indian cargo ship and ordered the crew to surrender, according to victims of the attack.

Instead of swords and telescopes, the pirates brandished the modern tools of their trade: hand grenades, satellite phones, night-vision goggles and AK-47 assault rifles. They locked the crew members in the ship's cabin, beat some of them and demanded a $500,000 ransom.

Awaiting rescue, the crew scribbled "help" on wooden planks and secretly tossed them into the sea.

A boat the pirates had attempted to seize earlier had sent out a distress message, which was relayed to the USS Winston S. Churchill, a guided-missile destroyer plying the waters nearby. U.S. sailors freed the crew after five days, and 10 young Somalis were arrested and taken to a maximum-security prison in Mombasa, Kenya, the nearest port.

Last week, awaiting trial for the January incident, two of the suspects proclaimed their innocence, saying they had been out fishing when their boat broke down and were trying just to catch a ride back to Somalia.

The incident is one in a surging number of suspected pirate attacks in the perilous waters off the coast of Somalia, a lawless country that has had no army or police, navy or coast guard since 1991. Last year, 35 pirate attacks were reported in the area, compared with two the year before, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a watchdog group based in London.

"The tentacles of lawless Somalia have finally reached the rest of the world," said Harjit Kelley, a retired Kenyan naval commander who works for a U.N. monitoring group for Somalia. "They don't care what flag is flying or who is onboard. They will just kill for the ransoms and cargo."

Maritime experts say powerful warlords in Somalia hire fishermen to commit acts of piracy, claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom from hijacked shipping boats from around the world. The warlords use the money to buy more sophisticated weapons and equipment, the experts say.

Last week, pirates hijacked an oil tanker and its 32 crew members at a port in southern Somalia, the Associated Press reported. No demands for ransom have been made.

Two U.S. Navy warships returned fire on a group of suspected pirates off the Somali coast last month, killing one suspect and wounding five, according to Cmdr. Jeff Breslau, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Forces Central Force at Bahrain. Ten of the suspects are in U.S. custody at sea, and two are being treated for injuries in an undisclosed country, Breslau said. A spokesman for the pirates has said the Americans fired first, according to news reports.

In November, Somali pirates attacked a luxury, Miami-based cruise liner with a rocket-propelled grenade and machine-gun fire, injuring one crew member but none of the 151 passengers. The ship fired an acoustic weapon that emitted a deafening bang, and the pirates fled.

Inside a dank prison hallway in Mombasa, two of the 10 suspected Somali pirates arrested in the January incident shuffled into an interview room in handcuffs and flip-flops, looking more haggard and despondent than swashbuckling.

"We're simple shark fisherman who were lost at sea and hoping for a push from the nearest boat," Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, 22, said in Somali through his attorney, who translated the interview. "Now, we're stuck in this David and Goliath case."

"I was just trying to earn a humble living that day. When one of our boats failed, we hitched our boats to the Indians' to be tugged home to Mogadishu," said Mohamed Abdi Fitah, 18, adjusting a long, cotton wrap worn by Somali men.

Somalis say piracy is just one woe on the country's long list.

The country of 8 million has lacked an effective government since 1991, when warlords ousted a dictatorship and turned on one another, breaking the country into a patchwork of fiefdoms. A transitional government formed in 2004 operates out of Kenya and from the southern Somali town of Baidoa because of the lack of security in Mogadishu, the capital, and most of the rest of the country.

Fighting between factions last month in Mogadishu left at least 93 people dead and 200 injured, according to Reuters news reports.

In southern Somalia, the worst drought in a decade has left 2.1 million people dependent on food aid. Wells have turned to a trickle and crops have wilted in the heat after three seasons of failed rains.

Piracy has slowed the distribution of food aid in the region and increased costs of such operations. The U.N. World Food Program said several aid ships have been attacked and that it has been forced to transport relief on dangerous roads bristling with militia checkpoints.

"We have pirates, we have militias. This is not even a country or a place with stable structures. It's like working in an earthquake, even though there's no earthquake," Stephanie Savariaud, an information officer with the food agency, said in an interview in Wajid, Somalia, a dusty town 300 miles from the coast. "Somalia is one of the most complex emergency situations in the world."

In an incident March 13, a food aid ship came under fire at the Somali port of Merca. No one was injured, but the boat was left bullet-ridden.

In another incident in June, Kenyan Capt. Mohamed Shee, 63, a veteran sailor, said his vessel was attacked while delivering rice for tsunami victims in Somalia. Shee said three speedboats pulled up and pirates hooked a small metal ladder to the ship. They boarded, barefoot and carrying machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and satellite phones, he said.

"They robbed all our money. And it went on and on for so many days, my family didn't know if I was alive or dead," Shee said, scratching his salt-and-pepper beard. "I kept thinking it was really sad for those waiting for the food in Somalia."

A ransom was eventually paid, but the boat owner declined to disclose the amount.

Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi said in an interview that Somalia's fledgling government desperately needed help from the United States.

"We're newborn babies, and we need our parents," said Gedi, whose last visit to Mogadishu ended in a grenade attack that killed eight people. "It's not enough just to be born, we still can't stand on our two feet. The transitional government welcomes any U.S. assistance."

The rising number of pirate attacks might force the United States to pay more attention to Somalia, long considered a center of al-Qaeda activities. Although no intelligence has linked pirates to any terrorist group, diplomats and maritime experts warn that pirates could easily be hired to commit acts of terrorism at sea.

In neighboring Kenya, some say they hope the role of their country's court in the case won't lead to more attacks on Kenyan ships.

"When I am at sea," Shee said, "I worry the Somali pirates will strike back at boats that fly the Kenyan flag because they think we are the ones who wanted them behind bars."

The suspects being held in Mombasa will be back in court this month, and their Somali-Kenyan defense attorney, Hassan Abdi, said the case could be the toughest fight of his career.

"I just hope this case is going to get a fair trial based on the facts," Abdi said. "The Kenyan courts could be used to say: 'Pirates, your days are numbered.' "