Somali Jihadi Pirates Seize Tanker

They’re baaaaack. The “water jihad” has resurfaced.

The seizure of a tanker this week reminds us that the threat of Somali pirates remains a recurring fact of life in the Age of Absurdity.

Why a bunch of flea-bitten, sea going punks cannot be put down, is a good question.

Maybe privatization isn’t such a bad idea: go counter-jihad on them.

“Ship Hijacking Shows Somali Piracy Threat Remains High, UN Says,” by Felix Njini, Bloomberg, March 16, 2017:

The hijacking of a fuel tanker off Somalia’s coast shows the threat still posed by pirates to one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, a risk that may also hamper the Horn of African country’s efforts to explore for offshore oil and gas, a United Nations official said.

“This is absolutely a return of piracy,” Alan Cole, head of the UN’s Global Maritime Crime Programme, said of the March 13 hijacking of the Aris 13 freighter in waters off Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region.

The tanker was the first ship seized off the Eastern Africa seaboard in five years. Hijackings in the region caused havoc for international shipping from about 2001 to 2012, peaking with 176 attacks in 2011. They declined in part because of actions by the European Union’s anti-piracy mission.

Somalia, trying to emerge from decades of civil war and defeat al-Qaeda-linked militants, is seeking to encourage foreign companies to…

Foto: In this photo taken Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012, masked Somali pirate Hassan stands near a Taiwanese fishing vessel that washed up on shore after the pirates were paid a ransom and released the crew, in the once-bustling pirate den of Hobyo, Somalia. The empty whisky bottles and overturned, sand-filled skiffs that litter this shoreline are signs that the heyday of Somali piracy may be over – most of the prostitutes are gone, the luxury cars repossessed, and pirates talk more about catching lobsters than seizing cargo ships. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

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