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Somali pirates take a ship full of T-72 tanks


ChrisND

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Bigduke6,

Was hoping you'd reenter the lists! At the rate NATO decides, it'll be a month plus to create even provisional ROEs, let alone implement them. As I expected, though, the pirates have succeeded in making themselves a nail in a hammer store. If the Russians are worried about their people on the MV Faina, I'd expect naval Spetsnaz to take down the vessel, with stiff Ukrainian diplomatic notes to follow. Navies do indeed exist to suppress pirates; I've cited examples going back to Roman times in proof of this claim.

I found it most interesting that the naval blog agreed with me regarding the tender mercies of the Russians and the wisdom of surrendering to the U.S. Navy if given the chance. Wasn't rocket science, though, just long observation of Russian behavior. Wasn't kidding about the likelihood of their sending warlords body parts of ever closer kin, either. Worked great in Lebanon!

dan/california,

The pirates should be glad they don't have to deal with you! As I noted before, the more they come to resemble conventional naval forces at sea, by using FPB type vessels, for example, the easier they are to destroy with standard naval weaponry. With illiteracy so high, I'd say use radio and TV warnings, plus word of mouth, to warn of what will happen. If you're going to fight terrorism, how can you not fight piracy and remain credible?

Regards,

John Kettler

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To expand on things a little bit, Piracy and terrorism are fundamentally different in some ways. In particular it is much easier to change the risk/reward calculus of economically motivated pirates. The way I would do that is to increase the risk, and put the video on you tube to help get the word out too. Even if the twenty year old doing the actual piracy don't care their backers would be quite sensitive to large losses in boats and equipment. Backtracking the cell phones of a few negotiators Sat. phones and sending some appropriate ordinance their way would also do wonders to clog up the gears of this little problem.

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looky what i found while reading a link from another thread.

titled, "Security firms join Somali piracy fight"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/af_somalia_piracy_protection;_ylt=A2KIKvOXJgVJckMB8REUewgF

nice, long article about the whole ordeal, mentions how some security firms aren't even arming their operatives, but are using some pretty interesting non-lethal forms of deterrent, a la greased/electrified hand rails, high-pressure hoses, the infamous microwave cannons and of course LRAD.

make sure to read the part about how a certain tugboat defends itself from maritime piracy...

Makes me seasick just thinking about it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Every one is sitting, and the "pirates" have captured several more ships, most recently I think a Danish-flagged vessel with a Russian crew. There have been a few cases of a warship getting close enough to intercept "pirates" near a cargo ship, and the other day I think even some shots were fired. But there's no progress on the Ukrainian ship, negotiations about a ransom are dragging on and on. The crew seems to have food and water, and no one else appears to be in a hurry.

The Russians are huffing and puffing about how they will use force unilaterally if they see the need, and that their "squadron" of one warship and a supply ship will cooperate with the NATO flotilla, but not act under its command.

So basically what you have is about a dozen expensive warships cutting waves and pretending fight piracy, but they're capable of controlling the sea out to the horizon but not much more, and there's alot more ocean needing watching than that.

No info on a raid to capture the ship, but it seems the Ukrainian government has ruled that out because they don't want to risk the lives of the crew.

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Bigduke6,

As noted by Cpl Steiner in a separate thread, HMS Cumberland, via her embarked Royal Marines, has seized one pirate ship following a foolish attack by the occupants on said Marines. Must say I very much like the shot of the pirates, with their hands on their heads, fingers laced. Would further observe the pirates are lucky any of them survived the firefight. Perhaps it was the height differential, creating masking? While I freely grant this seizure isn't much in the broader context of the problem, it does send a message. Further, the reaction of the pirates is about as expected once militarily confronted with a proper force. Piracy's all fun and games--until armed troops show up and start shooting! Then it's not so fun any more.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5141745.ece

As I noted weeks ago, if the Somali pirates became too obstreperous, they'd win the nail sweepstakes and get hammered for their pains. This is exactly what's happened here, for HMS Cumberland is a NATO vessel on antipirate patrol. We may not have our ROEs sorted out, but the British already have certain procedures firmly in place, as some of the pirates learned permanently.

I confess myself very surprised the Russians haven't yet moved against the MV Faina, and am curious whether you've learned anything substantive regarding the released Iranian ship and its lethal cargo?

Regards,

John Kettler

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John,

How do you send a message, when the pirates don't watch CNN/BBC/etc.? Think about the pirate boatload, the cost to the Somali society for putting it on the water, and then the Marine boatload, and the cost to the English society of putting them on the water. Now ask: Which society can mobilize more boats with more armed guys, and sustain it?

I am not impressed by one captured motor boat of pirates, and I doubt seriously the other pirates are either, if they have heard of it, which is quite questionable.

There was a great piece on Al Jazeera the other day, it was Bay of Bengal not Arabian Sea, but same deal, dirt-poor fishermen by day, pirates of opportunity by night. They interviewed the pirates and everything. The fishing gives you a legitimate reason to be on the water, and you have to it's easy explain away the weapons on board - the waters are known to be infested with pirates, a fisherman's gotta protect himself!:D

As to the Faina, that's a Ukrainian ship with a Ukrainian government cargo, and the last thing the Ukrainians want is the Russian navy pulling their chips out of the fire. After Georgia it is not exactly in Kiev's interest to support Russian arguements that the Kremlin is a brotherly protector of all former Soviet nations.

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John,

...

As to the Faina, that's a Ukrainian ship with a Ukrainian government cargo, and the last thing the Ukrainians want is the Russian navy pulling their chips out of the fire. After Georgia it is not exactly in Kiev's interest to support Russian arguements that the Kremlin is a brotherly protector of all former Soviet nations.

I think Timoshenko's mob might be supportive of Russia - after all, the Ukraine does have a major agreement in the provision of a deep water port for the Russian Navy (part of the original secession treaty), and they did allow the basing of the naval operations against Georgia.

You might argue that they have little choice, but this is, after all, realpolitik. Georgia has experienced the consequences of wishing for a different reality and acting to promote fantasies.

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Costard,

I think you are mostly right, but the thing to remember about Yulia T. is that she first and foremost is a populist politician. For the most part her loyalties are only to the strongest political wind. She is quite happy to cut deals with Putin and she is in no hurry on joining NATO, but she will resist anything undermining Ukrainian sovereignty, as the Ukrainian population better than most knows the Russians are never friends, at best they are neighbors you keep under control.

Further, one of her campaign planks - and a fairly solid one at that - is that a good many of Ukraine's problems are due to macho men playing politics in macho male ways, when what the country needs is a good firm matriarch for an unruly household. She was deadset against sending Ukrainian troops to Iraq, is unenthusiastic about Ukrainian peacekeeper commitments elsewhere, and she even paid lip service to Ukrainian complaints about Russia sending warships from Sevastopol to beat up on the Georgians. She is on the record that she wants the Russian fleet out of Sevastopol in 2017, which is when the rent contract runs out.

So I would guess she is quite disinclined to support Russian military ops involving Ukrainians overseas, if for nothing else because if the Russians were successful, that would strengthen the pro-Russia wing of Ukrainian politics, which she opposes even more than the pro-Europe wing (sort of) running the country right now.

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Bigduke6,

Wanted to note for the record a related item on PMCs on the high seas. The History Channel has a show called Shadow Warriors dealing with mercenaries working for governments. In the episode I saw, a merc fireteam, if you would, including a young woman who was ex-State Department (suspect either diplomatic security or Bureau of Intelligence & Research), working with the renowned mercenary Cobus in protecting Liberia's Exclusive Economic Zone fishery area. Foreign vessels there are required to carry an official Liberian observer, have the requisite up-to-date licenses and permits, etc. The team was using a tramp steamer to get in fairly close, then deploying a military surplus RIB equipped with an acoustic weapon and a FLIR, plus a body armored, unarmed boarding team to board, inspect, and take an errant vessel in. Methodology relied on a mix of maneuver, bluff, and intimidation via perceived threat. Offsetting this was the possibility of running into a defending force armed with one or more AK-47s! No Blackwater op, this whole thing was done on a shoestring, as evidenced by the tramp steamer's engine failure and the loss of the distilling system for fresh water. Apparently, the team was paid only when a vessel was found fishing illegally and heavy fines assessed. I think the Liberian government wanted its fishery protected but was unwilling to take the political heat for allowing armed foreign mercs to do the enforcement. Very exciting work--even with big ones!

As for the MV Faina, I'd be willing to bet that if things get hinky, the Russians WILL take down the ship, invoking the same protecting their citizens argument used in South Ossetia/Abkhazia/Georgia.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Hmm, I wonder if this is going to be the next Exxon Valdez scenario... I hope they think of the consequences to Somalian fishing communities.

Oh yeah, now I get it - first they got a tank company, now they got oil - oh my god, soon they're going to blitzkrieg their way through Africa!

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That is a very intelligent question. My guess is, the oil is worth more as an insurance loss than as product sold on the market these days, crude was about 50 bucks a barrel last time I looked. So the oil owners have every incentive to wait and hope the price rises, sucks to be the crew of course. But then the crew seems to have just given up, the freeboard on that tanker is about 20 feet and unless I'm missing something the tanker's crew could have hunkered down and ignored the pirates. Sure the pirates could have shot up the bridge, but in a wartime situation the cargo ship would have got through I think. But I bet what happened here is, the crew of the tanker knows full well they don't get paid a dime more for risking their lives, and becoming a hostage for a while is safer than riding out small arms fire.

If the pirates started killing hostages that attitude might change, but Golden Goose and all that.

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My friend is a sailor, and according to him oil tankers are extremely hard to capture. The reason is that the crewmen can shoot high pressurized 95 celcius water back at the pirates. A glorified riot-control water cannon, that is.

Now, if you thought you were going to die, this would make an excellent self-defense weapon. But in this situation I don't think the crewmen felt too unsafe. Somebody is going to buy that ship back. Not buying the crewmen back at the same time would seem a bit bad...

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Looks like there's another angle the mass media hasn't covered regarding Somalia: a secret war the U.S. has been waging there through a variety of means. The smoking gun is quite a surprise--a stainless steel pin Navy doctors used to patch up a target who resisted being snatched up and got shot in consequence.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-shadow_war2nov24,0,4720127.story?page=1

Regards,

John Kettler

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Ditto that, I thought it was a fine article.

I love the line about the West Point think tank that concludes that an anarchic Somalia is a great place to fight Islamic terrorists, essentially because in a place like that there are no rules and no oversight, so you can do whatever you want. The logic is, of course, if the secret squirrel types (you know, CIA, Special Forces command, NSA, etc. etc.) are magically allowed to do whatever they want (kill, kidnap, extort, ignore dead civilians etc.) then the war against the "terrorists" (don't get me started) will be "won".

As the article makes clear, that policy as pursued in Somalia is an abject failure. The edvidence shows that if you allow the secret terror war people to take the gloves off in an anarchic Islamic country, what you wind up with is chaos, violence, and lots of armed and really mad followers of Islam.

Which is not to say Somalia wasn't a hellhole before, or to accuse the Americans of somehow undermining a Somalia that used to be as law-abiding as Switzerland. But what is clear is, the US policy in the region so far has not made things better, it has made things worse.

Your tax dollars at work...

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