Sunday - September 28, 2008

It’s tough being a pirate

So this other bunch of Somali pirates, the ones who failed rocks and mud in the village school system, and got a D- in sticks, hijacked a freighter the other month. Hey, one freighter is the same as the next right, and they’re all good for a few million in ransom. Right? Wrong. These guys hijacked some Iranian rustbucket. Iranian ships are infamous for their fudged manifests. It might say “cargo contains fresh ice cream and condensed sunshine, no peanuts at all”, but what’s in the hold is often as deadly as the next shipment of little children’s toys from China. They still have the boat, and they’re still demanding some kind of ransom. That is, the ones who aren’t dead yet. From the toxic or radioactive chemicals on board. Like I said, not too smart. Can you say “arrgh-d’oh!”? Hey, that sounds fwench don’t it?

A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.

Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.

Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”

The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.

The Iran Deyanat was sailing in those waters on August 21, past the Horn of Africa and about 80 nautical miles southeast of Yemen, when it was boarded by about 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. They were alleged members of a crime syndicate said to be based at Eyl, a small fishing village in northern Somalia.

The ship is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, a state-owned company run by the Iranian military.

Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”

Mwangura has added: “Our sources say it contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals.”

But IRISL has denied that — and threatened legal action against Mwangura.

That’s right, Iran is going to sue the spokesman for Somali Pirates Assistance Programmmeee because he said the cargo was dangerous. Because Somali pirates drop dead in bunches all the time, after losing their hair and teeth. Probably from a lack of Vitamin C. Tough to find fruit to eat in Africa you know.

More on the story over at Bill Roggio’s Long War Journal. I know, he covered this one last week. I’m late to the party, again. But hey, he gets to talk to governments and stuff directly, and actually has a staff working for him around the world. Color me green, m’kay? Just not with Iranian ice cream or Chinese non-toxic toy paint, pet food, or powdered milk.

News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4.
...
Once in direct contact, the pirates told Osman that they had attempted to inspect the ship’s seven cargo containers after they developed health complications but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the “access codes” and could not open them. The delegation secured contact with the captain and the engineer by cell phone and demanded to know the nature of the cargo, however, Osman says that “they were saying different things to different people.” Initially they said that the cargo contained “crude oil” but then claimed it contained “minerals.”

“Puntland requested the pirates two weeks ago to hand over this Iranian ship, saying that it is carrying weapons to Eritrea,” Puntland Fisheries Minister Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf told Reuters. “I have seen food and other odd items on the ship but I do not know what is hidden underneath.”

Iran’s involvement in the conflict in Somalia on behalf of Islamist insurgents is well documented. In 2006, Iran flouted arms embargos and provided sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), intelligence sources told The Long War Journal, including SA-7 Strella and SA-18 Igla MANPADS - shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles - as well as AT-3 Sagger antitank missiles.

So there is no real government in Somalia, yet this “semi-autonomous” corner of that barbaric sandbox seems to have ministers and government agencies and trade union associations. And they can come and go and visit with the pirates and “negotiate” whenever they want. Sound a little fishy to you? Sounds like In Total Cahoots to me. And the pirates couldn’t open the containers because they didn’t have the “access codes”?? WTF? If the classic pirate “access code”, usually called a blunderbuss, doesn’t work, try an acetylene torch! Like I said, this bunch failed mud.

This is at least the 4th pirate story I’ve posted about that has been based out of the little village of Eyl. That fancy sailboat full of frenchies was taken there too. Why is this place still standing?

Posted by Drew458     on 09/28/2008 at 08:55 PM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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