#5: If failed states turn to pirate states... It is time for me to invest in Viking Pirates from Iceland... (Likely Valkyries as the men leave the land of Ice and Snow.)
#7: Privateers broke up the Barbary pirates strangle hold on commerce....
Another thought: Long ago it was reported that Al Qaeda had at least six ships of their own, part of Bin Laden's investments to transport blood diamonds and other illicit cargo. He had brothers-in-law in the Philippines and on Madagascar, and little brother Khalil reportedly in the Tri-states area of South America overseeing drug trafficking. Maybe time to hunt down those mother ships with some mother-effing private contractors.
#10: You know, in a way I'm jealous of these guys. They are out there living life to the maximum - albeit it may be a shorted life if they tangle with India again - while I'm sitting on my ass in a cube eating leftover pizza from last night and reading about men having adventures.
I bet there are a few here on Rantburg that understand...
#16: #8 - I think there's a "mole" in the local shipping industry that knows where every ship will be at any given time, and passes the message to the pirates. I also wouldn't doubt that this outfit started out small, but with each success, grew. The fact that NO ONE has really fought back hard is a sad commentary on where we are in the world today. India killed one mother-ship. Great, and we welcome the action. But where are the NATO vessels? Where is the 5th Fleet? Where are the B-52s from Diego Garcia? Where are the AC-130s? Bomb Eyl off the map, and then stand ready to repeat the process the next time a ship is hijacked, and you'll cut the profit margin to nil, and put the fear of God into those that attempt any future pirating. Saying "Tut, tut", or "Naughty, naughty", isn't going to get us anywhere.
#17: But OP, what about the innocent fishermen and the mothers and little chirrens who are loving their new flat screens bought with the pirate ransom money?????
Indian Navy could send more warships to counter Somalian pirates in the Gulf of Aden even as Somalia has permitted India to enter its territorial waters as part of an effort to check piracy.
Besides India, navies of US and France have also been permitted hot pursuit in Somalian territorial waters which extends upto 12 nautical miles from the coastline.
A Delhi class destroyer has already sailed from Mumbai to the Gulf of Aden to augment anti-piracy patrol off Somalia raising the number of Indian warships on patrol from Salalah to Aden to two.
The 6,900-tonne Delhi class destroyers are the largest indigenously built warships till date and pack more fire power in them than frigates.
They carry on board two Sea King helicopters, along with a Cheetah or a Chetak, and stock 16 Uran missiles, 100mm AK 100 gun, four multi-barrel 30mm AK 630 gun.
Posted by: john frum|| 2008-11-20 14:56 ||CommentsTop||
#19: The Wahhabist 'royal' Saudi, OPEC oil barons have 'donated' multiple millions to the likes of the PLO and many other Arab & Muslim terrorist groups, coupled with paying for thousands of madrasas (Islamic training centers)worldwide.
For example. Saudi Sunni-Wahabbist cult based madrasas in Pakistan train future Sunni-related jihadists, which our troops are combating in Afghanistan & Iraq,
Over many years Saudi oil profits have financed Sunni-Arab killers, responsible for horrific murders of many numbers of Israelis, also Americans, British & other foreign nationals, coupled with scores of airline hijackings and the PLO's horrific dismemberment of Lebanon.
Saudi monetary contributions earned off of Western energy consumers also bought shipments of weapons, triggering the bloody 'Black September' civil war in Jordan, and more recent, 15 Wahhabist Saudi nationals out of the 19 September 11th, 2001 multi-terrorist attacks against America, resulting in over 3000 murdered innocent victims. A vile testament of a Saudi Wahhabist anti-Western 'education'.
Previously, oil-super-rich, despotic, Saudi rulers, who made billions in manipulated petroleum profits, while millions were stuck on long gas lines -- now those tyrannical ruling Saudi Wahhabists are on the receiving end of having some of their own oil supertankers being held hostage for ransom, by Somalian Muslim pirates, possibly trained or assisted directly, or indirectly, with Saudi oil profit 'donations'.
Reciprocity in motion!
Posted by: Mark Espinola|| 2008-11-20 15:26 ||CommentsTop||
#20: Yosemite Sam
Yeah, but to be honest I'm starting to get to the point in life where the pizzia is starting to look pretty good.
I'm membered of the time a few years back when I mentioned to a younger guy that I was kind of sorry I missed the days when you really could run off the the South Seas and live the life.
He sort of looked at me and said you still could; he told me about how in the 90's he left hoime and went to to Hawaii to live for a few years.
He just did't get it when I started laughing liek the fool I most likely am.
(SomaliNet) A regional maritime group said on Wednesday that Somali pirates have seized another ship, a Greek bulk carrier, despite a large international naval presence in the waters off their lawless country.
The vessel was they second they had taken since the weekend's spectacular capture of a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million of oil that was the largest hijack in history.
The incident was the latest espisode in a wave of Somali piracy this year that has driven up insurance costs, made some shipping companies change their routes and prompted an unprecedented military response from NATO and the European Union among others.
"The pirates are sending out a message to the world that 'we can do what we want, we can think the unthinkable, do the unexpected'," Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, told Reuters in Mombasa.
His group, which monitors attacks at sea, said the Greek ship was taken on Tuesday in the Gulf of Aden with about 25 crew on board. He had no further details but it followed the hijacking of a Hong Kong-flagged ship carrying grain and bound for Iran.
No ransom has been demanded so far for the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, which the pirates seized on Saturday after dodging international naval patrols in their boldest strike yet. A spokesman for the owners, Saudi Aramco, said the company hoped to hear from the hijackers later on Wednesday.
The hijacking took place 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, far beyond the gangs' usual area of operations. On Wednesday, it was believed to be anchored near Eyl, a former Somali fishing village now used as a well-defended pirate base. "Eyl residents told me they could see the lights of a big ship far out at sea that seems to be the tanker," Aweys Ali, chairman of Somalia's Galkayo region, told Reuters by telephone.
Somali gunmen were believed to be holding about a dozen ships in the area, and more than 200 hostages. Among the vessels is a Ukrainian ship loaded with 33 tanks and other weapons that was captured in another high-profile strike earlier this year.
The seizure of the Sirius Star was carried out despite an international naval response, including from NATO, to guard one of the world's busiest shipping routes. Warships from the United States, France and Russia are also off Somalia.
Given that the pirates were well-armed with grenades, heavy machineguns and rocket-launchers, the foreign forces were steering clear of direct confrontation, and in most cases the owners of the hijacked ships were trying to negotiate ransoms.
British Royal Navy Commodore Keith Winstanley, deputy commander of the Combined Maritime Forces in the Middle East, said coalition forces could not be everywhere. "The pirates will go somewhere we are not," he told Fairplay, part of defence analysts Jane's Information Group. "If we patrol the Gulf of Aden then they will go to Mogadishu. If we go to Mogadishu, they will go to the Gulf of Aden."
In a show of resolve, Kenyan police paraded eight suspected pirates in a Mombasa court on Wednesday. The Royal Navy captured them, and killed two others, in the Gulf of Aden last week.
Also on Wednesday, South Korea said it was planning to send navy ships to the waters off Somalia to protect commercial vessels from pirates, and Japan was considering a similar move.
#1: So why the greatly increased pirate activity in that area? Could it be that jihad income from oil profits, and other sources are down? The AQ, Taliban, Hamas, et al, may be experiencing something more like a depression than a recession. I hope.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon|| 2008-11-20 04:51 ||CommentsTop||
#2: Or they're simply doing it because they can. And they can because international order (political and economic) is breaking down.
Posted by: William Sutton|| 2008-11-20 07:00 ||CommentsTop||
#4: If all the ships worth defending are in the port of Eyl, the Russian weapons, Iranian WMD's, $100 million Saudi crude, wouldn't it be easier to just J-Dam the cess pool called Somalia?
(SomaliNet) A day after hijacking it in the restive Niger Delta, gunmen in Nigeria have released a cargo ship and its crew, a senior Nigerian military official said on Tuesday.
According to reports, the attackers intercepted the MV Thou Galaxy on Sunday as it sailed for Warri in Delta state, seizing at least 10 people on board including the captain. "The vessel was released yesterday with its cargo and all the crew members," said Brigadier-General Wuyep Rimtip, head of the military taskforce in the western Niger Delta. "I'm not aware that any ransom was paid before their release and I don't expect the state government to pay any ransom for their release."
A military spokesman on Monday said he believed gunmen loyal to rebel leader Tom Polo were behind the attack. Insecurity in the Niger Delta, home to Nigeria's oil sector, has slashed a fifth of the OPEC member's oil production since early 2006.-
Rab recovered one US-made belt-fed M79 grenade launcher and five 40mm grenades at Rangamatia in Chittagong's Fatikchhari upazila early yesterday. The weapons were found abandoned near a graveyard during a raid on a hideout of criminal gang Daulat Bahini at Malikasha in North Rangamatia, Rab said.
Rab 7 commanding officer Zahidur Rahim said they believe the arms belong to Daulat, the gang's kingpin. "The M79 grenade launcher and its 40mm grenades were first widely used by the US troops during the Vietnam War," he told The Daily Star.
"The grenades can successfully hit their target within 150m (point target) and is effective within a range of 350m (area target)," he added. "The anti-personnel cartridges were used against people and light vehicles and had a devastating effect within a 5m radius of the target," said the Rab official.
#1: Why didn't they unload it on the RAB? What kind of lousy, half-assed criminal drops a fully loaded grenade launcher? Damned banglas, they can't even break the law right.
#2: Big-jim: If you're caught and you haven't killed anyone from the RAB, you're given a couple of swats of the baton and carted off to jail. If you DO manage to kill a RAB member, you're disassembled alive before a live RAB audience wearing earplugs.
(AKI) - Italian anti-terrorism police have carried out at least 135 raids and are investigating 11 foreigners in various Italian regions who are suspected of links to an alleged Morocco-based Islamist group. The organisation, called 'Al-Adl Wal Ihsan' or Justice and Charity, is being investigated for association to commit international terrorist acts.
Several apartments and cultural centres thought to be linked to the Moroccan movement are being investigated as well as 11 foreigners.
According to investigators, the 'Justice and Charity' movement is a front for a group seeking the restoration of an Islamic caliphate in Morocco and the abolition of the monarchy.
Justice and Charity is believed to be Morocco's largest opposition Islamist movement. However, the group claims it wants to transform Moroccan society through non-violent means and social work.
Justice and Charity is tolerated by the Moroccan government but reportedly has no legal status to organise meetings.
The group has repeatedly accused the government of imprisoning its members and limiting its funding resources.
The anti-terrorism investigations are taking place in the regions of Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Lombardy, Veneto in northern Italy and in the central Emilia Romagna and Marche region.
Posted by: Fred ||2008-11-20 00:00 ||Comments
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File under: al-Qaeda in Europe
KABUL, Nov. 19 -- A suspected U.S. suspected airstrike deep inside suspected Pakistani territory Wednesday killed suspected six insurgent suspected fighters and wounded suspected several others, according to a suspected Pakistani security suspected official.
The airstrike in the district of Bannu in the North-West Frontier Province appears to be the first such attack outside Pakistan's tribal areas. It came as the country's top military officer met with NATO officials in Brussels to discuss the cross-border missile strikes, which have been increasingly frequent in recent months and which the United States considers necessary for combating al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The attacks have stoked tensions in Pakistan and drawn public rebukes from the government.
An unmanned U.S. Predator drone fired at least two missiles early Wednesday morning at a house near North Waziristan, one of seven semi-autonomous tribal territories that line Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. A Pakistani security official said the six who were killed were believed to be foreigners with suspected links to al-Qaeda.
So nobody will especially miss them ...
Details about those killed could not be confirmed. A Pakistani military spokesman declined to comment. The U.S. generally does not acknowledge such attacks and has so far not issued any public comments on the use of Predator airstrikes on Pakistani soil.
Shortly after Wednesday's strike, Quazi Hussain Ahmad, head of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, vowed to block a vital NATO supply route if the U.S. attacks continue, the Associated Press reported.
Make .. our .. day ...
Posted by: Steve White ||2008-11-20 00:00 ||Comments
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#1: I suspect that WaPo at least suspects that nobody else in that part of the world uses these suspected missile-firing drones. They won't even admit to suspecting that the terrorists are in fact terrorists, and I find this policy suspicious.
In any case, there is more than a suspicion that these six will not be back in Afghanistan shooting, bombing, and beating up girls.
#3: The Islamic terrorist enemy sneaking into Afghanistan from Pakistan, due to the Paki government's inability, or refusal, to halt the continuous daily cross border jihadist intrusions, mandates our troops protect themselves to the fullest by taking this counter Islamic terrorism war to the radicalized Muslim enemy's home front and front door steps.
Posted by: Mark Espinola|| 2008-11-20 15:44 ||CommentsTop||
Gunmen riding a motorbike shot dead a retired major general of Pakistan Army and his driver in the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday,
Major General (R) Ameer Faisal Alvi from the Special Services Group (SSG) had retired more than two years ago. He was heading for his Islamabad office at 9:30am on Wednesday when the unidentified gunmen stopped his car on Islamabad Highway near the PWD Colony in Koral police precincts, a police official told Daily Times.
They shot at him and his driver Tanveer and fled, he added. Police cordoned off the area and began a search while the bodies were taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.
Hospital sources said eight bullets hit Gen Alvi -- three in the head, two in the neck and three in the chest. The driver had six bullet injuries including one in his head. Police told Online news agency one or more 8MM pistols had been used in the attack.
A first information report had not been registered by Wednesday evening.
Terrorist act: Police sources said the killing was being seen as a terrorist act by 'militants'. Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives have targeted top army leaders and security officials in the past.
One senior official said personal rivalry could not be ruled out. He said the murder could not be linked with the Lal Masjid operation because the general had retired long before the incident.
Violence began to escalate last July when army commandos stormed the Lal Masjid during the regime of General (r) Pervez Musharraf, himself an ex-SSG head. A wave of suicide bombings has since killed hundreds of people and Taliban have targeted security forces.
Violence subsided when the new government that came to power after the election in February opened talks with Taliban, but it picked up again after top Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud suspended the talks in June.
President, PM condemn: President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani condemned the killing in separate messages. Gilani deplored the tragic killing and expressed deep sorrow over the demise of the retired general.
President Zardari said he "prayed to Allah Almighty to rest the departed soul in peace and grant courage to the bereaved family to bear the loss with equanimity".
Security has deteriorated alarmingly in the country over recent months with the military attacking Al Qaeda and Taliban strongholds in the northwest while they have responded with attacks on security forces. Two suicide bombers had killed at least 59 people in an attack on the country's main defence industry complex in August.
Posted by: Fred ||2008-11-20 00:00 ||Comments
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File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
#1: First assumption - terrorists.
Alternative hypothesis - he knew where too many bodies were buried.
Five suspected Taliban fighters were killed in artillery fire and shelling by gunship helicopters in various areas of Bajaur Agency on Wednesday, while five Taliban and four civilians were killed in the military operation in Swat. In Bajaur, officials and locals said the aerial strikes targetted Taliban positions in Mamoond and Charmang areas.
APP reported that Taliban fighters had also been killed in Nawagai tehsil. The political administration has tightened security in the agency by setting up checkposts in various areas and increasing the number of security personnel, continuing the search for Afghan refugees and arresting seven suspects.
In Swat, ISPR said five Taliban fighters were killed by security forces in Kabal tehsil. A spokesman for the military's media information centre in Swat told APP that gunship helicopters were called in after the Taliban attacked troops in Kabal. Civilian deaths: Also, four people -- two women in Khwazakhela and two men in Kabal -- were killed and seven injured as mortar shells hit civilian houses, according to locals. ISPR officials refused comment on the civilian deaths. NNI however reported that 10 civilians had been injured in the operation in Swat.
School blown up: Meanwhile, the Taliban blew up a boys' primary school in Bara Bandai area of Kabal tehsil. NNI however reported that a girls' school had been blown up. According to official figures, 123 schools have so far been destroyed by the Taliban in Swat.
Iraqi security forces have arrested an alleged "senior" Iranian commando from the elite Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force at Baghdad International Airport, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
The military said they suspected the man of "involvement in facilitating Iranian weapons shipments into Iraq" under the cover of working for an organization involved in the restoration of Iraqi religious sites. The man is alleged to have used the organization as a front in order to bring weapons into Iraq concealed in shipments of building materials, the military said in a statement released late Tuesday.
The U.S. military has long accused Iran's Quds Force of arming, training, and funding Iraqi militiamen to stoke the sectarian violence that has convulsed the country since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, charges Tehran has denied.
The statement also said the man was carrying an "unspecified amount" of cocaine.
#3: Coming or going?
And what's with the cocaine? Iraqi security carrying drop bags so they can make the arrest stick? Or residual from his last trip to A'stan where he picked up a delivery for his boss?
Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.
The figures detailing Iran's progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country's main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms of low-enriched uranium.
Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design - a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.
"They clearly have enough material for a bomb," said Richard Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. "They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that's another matter."
Iran insists that it wants only to fuel reactors for nuclear power. But many western nations, led by the United States, suspect that its real goal is to gain the ability to make nuclear weapons.
While some Iranian officials have threatened to bar inspectors in the past, the country has made no such moves, and many experts inside the Bush administration and the IAEA believe it will avoid the risk of attempting "nuclear breakout" until it possessed a larger uranium supply. American intelligence agencies have said Iran could make a bomb between 2009 and 2015.
#2: Just their declared centrifuges have enough capacity for 1 bomb per year. The Iranians are idiots if they don't have several times more than that humming away in tunnels.
The Chinese provided designs to Pakistan (for Uranium and Plutonium implosion type missile warheads). These designs were both fully tested.
The IAEA found a copy in Libya (apparently provided free by AQ Khan when his stolen centrifuge designs are purchased) still wrapped in the plastic bag from his dry cleaners in Karachi.
These included copious notes in Urdu, written by the Chinese, that describe fabrication of each component ("bombs for dummies").
The Pakistanis provided the Chinese with the Uranium enrichment centrifuge designs (stolen from URENCO in the Netherlands by AQ Khan) in exchange for this weapon.
They traded both with North Korea for ballistic missile designs and components.
Iran has bought both the North Korean missile plans and the Pakistani centrifuge plans. Why would they not have obtained the Chinese weapon designs from either?
Posted by: john frum|| 2008-11-20 17:07 ||CommentsTop||
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
38.103.63.62
97341509
(SomaliNet) A regional maritime group said on Wednesday that Somali pirates have seized another ship, a Greek bulk carrier, despite a large international naval presence in the waters off their lawless country. 
(SomaliNet) A day after hijacking it in the restive Niger Delta, gunmen in Nigeria have released a cargo ship and its crew, a senior Nigerian military official said on Tuesday. 
(AKI) - Italian anti-terrorism police have carried out at least 135 raids and are investigating 11 foreigners in various Italian regions who are suspected of links to an alleged Morocco-based Islamist group. The organisation, called 'Al-Adl Wal Ihsan' or Justice and Charity, is being investigated for association to commit international terrorist acts. 
KABUL, Nov. 19 -- A suspected U.S. 
Gunmen riding a motorbike shot dead a retired major general of Pakistan Army and his driver in the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday,
Five suspected Taliban fighters were killed in artillery fire and shelling by gunship helicopters in various areas of Bajaur Agency on Wednesday, while five Taliban and four civilians were killed in the military operation in Swat. In Bajaur, officials and locals said the aerial strikes targetted Taliban positions in Mamoond and Charmang areas. 
Iraqi security forces have arrested an alleged "senior" Iranian commando from the elite Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force at Baghdad International Airport, the U.S. military said Wednesday. 
