Security

Shipping Companies: Blockade Somalia, or Attack It

With pirates continuing to roam the seas off of the Horn of Africa, shipping companies are talking aloud about all kinds of extreme solutions. Some are eying mercenary help. Two of the biggest firms will avoid the region altogether. The International Association of Independent Tanker Owners wants the UN to step up a naval blockade […]

Pirate2460
With pirates continuing to roam the seas off of the Horn of Africa, shipping companies are talking aloud about all kinds of extreme solutions. Some are eying mercenary help. Two of the biggest firms will avoid the region altogether. The International Association of Independent Tanker Owners wants the UN to step up a naval blockade of the pirates' home bases in Somalia. A second shipping group wants ever more dramatic action -- attacks of the Somali mainland.

The pirate-infested waters off of east Africa are huge -- more than 1.1 million square miles. So rather than trying to patrol that whole, enormous area, tanker owners' association president Peter Swift suggests "putting a blockade around Somalia and introducing the idea of intercepting vessels leaving Somalia rather than to try to protect the whole of the Gulf of Aden."

Alfons Guinier, secretary general of the European Community Shipowners Association, wants to go even farther, the *Guardian *notes. "We’re asking not just for more escorts but for repressive action."

The demand comes after the International Maritime Organization asked the UN security council to sanction dispatch of as many warships and aircraft as possible to "disrupt" pirate operations, secure shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden, and escort vessels, including those bringing food relief to war-torn Somalia.

Russia apparently suggested a similar idea. And so did one Islamic militant leader. "Ships belonging to Muslim countries should not be seized," Abdelghafar
Musa, a fighter with the Islamist group al-Shabab, told the Associated
Press.

UPDATE: Bloomberg looks at the rationale for paying pirate ransoms. And be sure to check out this Chicago Tribune story on "America's hidden war in Somalia."

[Photo: Guardian; crow's nest: JN]

ALSO: