By Githua Kihara

Somali pirates may be receiving support from foreign sources, including their kin in the diaspora, some of whom provide critical intelligence and other information on shipping expeditions along the Red Sea leading to an increase in the number of attacks on ships off the Somali coast. 

The foreign connections also facilitate the acquisition of sophisticated equipment and other infrastructure to enable the pirates carry out their attacks, Col Victor Gamor, the military advisor at the United Nations Political Office of Somali (UNOPS) told a maritime security and safety workshop in Mombasa.

“The sophistication of the operation, for example the selected targeting of ships carrying lucrative cargo gives credence to the allegation that intelligence is passed on to the pirates from external sources,” Gamor said. Pirates, he said, now use GPS systems and satellite phones.

It is believed that they are plugged into international networks that feed information from the ports in the Gulf, Europe, Asia and back to Somali.

The pirates have graduated from being simple fishermen with small boats and ordinary weapons into high-tech operators armed with modern weapons travelling in expensive speedboats, said Gamor. As the crime has become more and more lucrative, it has attracted a widening network of players who are stationed in foreign countries, Gamor said.

Last year alone, more than 40 ships were captured along the Somali coastline. With ransoms ranging from $500,000 to $2m, the pirates made a big fortune. Some of the money went to fast cars, new houses and lavish wedding parties, according to Gamor, but a significant portion also went into the acquisition of sophisticated equipment.

One reason why pirates can now operate hundreds of kilometers out to sea is that they can afford faster, more robust boats and satellite tracking systems.

The campaign to curb the involvement of foreign actors in fuelling piracy in Somali is complicated by the absence of an effective central authority in Somali. Although the country has a transitional government in place, it does not have effective control over the entire national territory.

 Somaliland, in the north west asserts its independence while Puntland, in the north east, exercises significant autonomy. While Somaliland, according to Gamor, appears in good measure to control piracy, the same cannot be said of Puntland.

In central and south Somali, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) controls a limited stretch of territory around Mogadishu, the capital.

The rest of the territory is under the control of the insurgent forces, or is highly contested, with territory constantly changing hands between the government and its allied forces, on the one hand, and hardline groups on the other.

Amid the chaos that exists in Somali, there is virtually no control of the flow of arms despite the existing international arms embargo, according to Gamor.

Porous borders

“Clandestine arm shipments by some foreign governments, accompanied by the influx of foreign fighters in the country have complicated the security situation in Somali,” Gamor said, adding that this is how some of the weapons find their way into the hands of the youth who engage in piracy.

“It is extremely difficult to break the communication network that fuels piracy in Somali without the support of a central government,” Gamor said.

The most effective way of dealing with piracy is by controlling their entry into the high sea, which can only be done if the FTG is able to secure the vast Somali coast with its isolated beaches. The long porous Somali borders make it possible to transfer the ransom paid to pirates, in dollars, most of which enters Kenya, according to Gamor.

Somali pirates are increasingly sailing further into the Indian Ocean from their bases in Puntland, in northern Somalia, due to the sophisticated equipment they have been able to acquire.

The largest vessel to have been hijacked in the history of piracy was the Sirius Star, a supertanker carrying two million barrels of oil which was hijacked last year 450 nautical miles (833 kilometers) southeast of Mombasa port, farther south than any previous attack.

“This incident is significant on two counts,” said International Maritime Bureau (IMB) Director Pottengal Mukundan.

“Firstly, this is the largest vessel to have been hijacked. Secondly, the distance from the shore would suggest a highly organized operation — this is not mere opportunism.”

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Source: Business Daily, September 7, 2009

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