Somali Pirates Are Beiginning To Feel Very Sure Of Themselves

Somali pirates in small boats hijacking on Sept. 25 the MV Faina, a Belize-flagged cargo ship owned and operated by "Kaalbye Shipping Ukraine" (Photo / AFP / Getty)

Arrr! The Somali Pirates and Their Troublesome Treasure
-- Time Magazine

Pirates aren't picky. Armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers and using skiffs mounted with high-powered engines launched from "motherships" disguised as fishing boats, the buccaneers who prowl the waters off the Somali coast pick their prey from the passing shipping traffic like lions selecting a kill: the slower and more defenseless, the better. "We hijack every ship we can," Sugule Ali, a pirate captain, told TIME by satellite phone this week.

The MV Faina fitted the bill. Slow, low-sided and sailing under a Belize flag, the freighter seemed no different from any of the 60 other ships attacked by pirates this year in the same waters. And Ali and his men had no reason to believe the outcome of this hijacking would be any different. In a well-established routine, a vessel is typically held for a few days or weeks while the pirates negotiate a ransom with the ship's owners, usually netting between $500,000 and $2 million. Then ship and crew are then released unharmed. This year, according to a new report by the British think tank Chatham House, the Somali pirate industry has raked in as much as $30 million.

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My Comment: The Time Magazine article blows open the story on how big of a business piracy is. It omits that the proceeds from piracy goes into funding the Islamic insurgency in the country.