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| Posted: November 21, 2008 |
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Piracy off the coast of Africa has increased in recent weeks, with eight attacks just this week. In a brazen attack, pirates captured a Saudi supertanker loaded with at least $100 million in oil, the largest ship ever hijacked. |
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| Arvil of Somerville, Mass., asks: |
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| Is there a possibility that the pirates may eventually turn inland and become important political players in Somalia? If not, how might they expand their operation at sea, and how can global forces counter that?
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| J. Peter Pham responds: |
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 There is no doubt that in a poor country like Somalia, the vast sums flowing in through ransom payments has served to elevate certain actors. Some pirate leaders in Puntland, for example, have become warlords with great wealth and influence. The pirates appear to share a portion of their ransoms with both officials of Somalia's interim "government" and Islamist insurgents fighting it, paying off both sides in the country's bloody conflict in order to ensure for themselves freedom to ply their maritime predation. While the Islamists, during the brief period they ruled Somalia two years ago, cracked down on piracy, after they were ousted by the Ethiopian military intervention in Dec. 2006, they seem to have changed their minds. There are reports that the Islamist insurgents are using the pirates to bring in arms as foreign fighters and, in exchange, have provided the pirate gangs with arms and training. There is also credible intelligence that at least one of the insurgent groups, al-Shabaab, which was designated a "foreign terrorist organization" by the United States earlier this year and is led by militants with links to al-Qaeda, is trying to create a small naval force of its own. Presumably the goal of the maritime unit of al-Shabaab would not be piracy so much as terrorism. |
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| Peter Le Sage responds: |
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 The political impact of the piracy is a concern, especially in the northeastern Somali region of Puntland. That area has been self-governing for some time - essentially a federal state in-waiting. Puntland was quite stable by contrast with south and central Somalia since the late 1990s. However, in recent years, that stability has come under significant strain, and there is particular concern that piracy money could play a role in Puntland's upcoming elections. There are also regular accusations (unsubstantiated thus far) that senior Puntland politicians may somehow benefit from the ransom payments. In terms of future expansion of piracy operations at sea, I think there are two major concerns: 1) that the pirates continue to extend their reach away from the northeastern Somali coast - the attack on the Sirius Star already demonstrates their capability some 450 nautical miles to the southeast - and, 2) that more and more copycat groups could get involved in piracy. |
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