Quotulatiousness

May 30, 2012

New in the battle against Somali pirates: private convoys

Filed under: Africa, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

At the BBC News site, Martin Plaut reports on the latest attempt to quell piracy off the shores of Somalia:

Off the pirate-infested waters of Somalia, a new force is taking shape.

The private company Typhon is preparing to operate alongside the world’s navies, offering protection to cargo vessels sailing around the Horn of Africa.

But unlike other private security firms which put guards on board other people’s ships, it will offer vessels of its own.

The chief executive of Typhon, Anthony Sharpe, says the plan is to rendezvous with cargo ships which sign up for their protection and form them into a convoy.

The company says it will establish what it is describing as an exclusion zone of one kilometre around the ships.

The company is buying three boats, which are currently being fitted out in Singapore.

Each of its craft will have up to 40 security officers, drawn from former British Royal Marines, as well as a crew of 20.

The ships will be fitted with machine guns and the staff will have rifles.

April 10, 2012

The easy days of piracy are fading rapidly

Filed under: Africa, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

Strategy Page has an update on the anti-piracy efforts off the Somalian coastline:

After two years of immense prosperity, the last year has been a disaster for the Somali pirates. For example, in the last eight months, only six ships have been captured, compared to 36 ships in the same eight month period a year ago. Pirate income is down 80 percent and expenses are up. Pirates have to spend more time at sea looking for a potential target, and when they find one, they either fail in their boarding efforts (because of armed guards, or better defense and more alert crews) or find anti-piracy patrol warships and armed helicopters showing up. Unlike in the past, the patrol now takes away the pirates weapons and equipment, sinks their mother ships and dumps the pirates back on a beach. The pirates claim that some members of the anti-piracy patrol simply kill pirates they encounter on the high seas (some nations have admitted doing this, at least once, in the past). But no one does this as official policy, and the rules are still basically “catch and release.” The big change is that the patrol has become much better at detecting pirates, on captured fishing ships, and shutting these pirates down. Often the pirates bring along the crew of the fishing ships, to help with the deception. But the patrol knows which fishing ships have “disappeared” and quickly identify those missing ships they encounter, and usually find pirates in charge. The anti-piracy patrol also has maritime reconnaissance aircraft that seek to spot mother ships as they leave pirate bases on the north Somali coast, and direct a warship to intercept and shut down those pirates. The pirates have been losing a lot of equipment, and time, and money needed to pay for it.

[. . .]

Pirates have responded by finding new targets (ships anchored off ports waiting for a berth) and using new tactics (using half a dozen or more speedboats for an attack.) The pirates still have a powerful incentive to take ships. In 2010, for example, pirates got paid over $200 million in ransom. The year before that it was $150 million. Most of that was taken by the pirate gang leaders, local warlords and the Persian Gulf negotiators who deal with the shipping companies. But for the pirates who took the ship, then helped guard it for months until the money was paid, the take was still huge. Pirates who actually boarded the ship tend to receive at least $150,000 each, which is ten times what the average Somali man makes over his entire lifetime. Even the lowest ranking member of the pirate gang gets a few thousand dollars per ransom. The general rule is that half the ransom goes to the financiers, the gang leaders and ransom negotiators. About a quarter of the money goes to the crew that took the ship, with a bonus for whoever got on board first. The pirates who guard the ship and look after the crew gets ten percent, and about ten percent goes to local clans and warlords, as protection money (or bribes).

[. . .]

For the last four years, Somali pirates have been operating as far east as the Seychelles, which are a group of 115 islands 1,500 kilometers from the African coast. The islands have a total population of 85,000 and no military power to speak of. They are defenseless against pirates. So are many of the ships moving north and south off the East Coast of Africa. While ships making the Gulf of Aden run know they must take measures to deal with pirate attacks (posting lookouts 24/7, training the crew to use fire hoses and other measures to repel boarders, hanging barbed wire on the railings and over the side to deter boarders), this is not so common for ships operating a thousand kilometers or more off the east coast of Africa. Ships in this area were warned last year that they were at risk. Now, the pirates are out in force, demonstrating that the risk is real.

April 2, 2012

EUNAVFOR to get more aggressive against pirates

Filed under: Africa, Europe, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:18

Strategy Page explains why the pirates in Puntland are being targeted:

The EU (European Union) agreed, on March 23rd, to allow its anti-piracy force off Somalia (EUNAVFOR) to attack coastal targets and coordinate military operations with the Somali TNG (Transitional National Government). This means that EUNAVFOR ships and aircraft can attack pirate targets on land. Most of the pirate bases (coastal towns and villages) are in Puntland, a self-declared state in northern Somalia. While less violent and chaotic than southern Somalia, Puntland officials are bribed and intimidated (by the superior firepower of the pirate gangs) into inaction. Technically, Puntland is opposed to the pirates, so the EU is hoping that Puntland won’t make a stink when EU forces begin shooting at pirates on the coast.

The EU plan apparently involves going after pirate logistics and fuel supplies in their coastal havens. This could be tricky, as the pirates are well aware of how the Western media works and could easily put many of these targets in residential neighborhoods. The EU could respond by blockading the pirate bases, and attacking pirate attempts to truck in fuel and other supplies. Pirates could put civilians on trucks, or even captured sailors from ships held for ransom. There is no easy solution to the Somali pirates.

April 1, 2012

“Off the Somali coast, everyone is looking for a big payday”

Filed under: Africa, Law, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:54

Strategy Page on recent developments in the anti-piracy campaign off the Somali coast:

To get around laws, in many ports, forbidding weapons aboard merchant ships, security companies operating off the Somali coast have equipped small ships to serve as floating arsenals. The security guards boards, in port, the merchant ships they are guarding, then meet up with the gun ship in international waters so the guards can get their weapons and ammo. The process is reversed when the merchant ships approach their destinations or leave pirate infested waters (and put the armed guards off onto the gun ship.) Maritime lawyers fret that there are no proper laws to regulate these floating armories, or that if there are applicable laws, everyone is not following them. It’s also feared that some enterprising lawyers will seek to represent the families of pirates shot by these armed guards. Off the Somali coast, everyone is looking for a big payday.

In the last three years, more and more merchant ships, despite the high expense, have hired armed guards when travelling near the “Pirate Coast” of Somalia. It began when France put detachments of troops on tuna boats operating in the Indian Ocean, and Belgium then supplied detachments of soldiers for Belgium ships that must move near the Somali coast. These armed guards are not cheap, with detachments costing up to $200,000 a week. There are now over a dozen private security companies offering such services. What makes the armed guards so attractive is the fact that no ship carrying them has ever been captured by pirates. That may eventually change, but for the moment, the pirates avoid ships carrying armed guards and seek less well-defended prey.

January 22, 2011

The increasing cost of fighting pirates

Filed under: Africa, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:51

Far from solving the problem of piracy in the Indian Ocean, the costs have increased dramatically:

The Somali piracy problem is not going away, despite years of efforts by an every-growing international anti-piracy patrol off the East African coast and the Indian Ocean. Since 2005, the average ship (and crew) ransom has increased over ten times (from $150,000). Thus overall cost of Somali piracy has increased to more than $5 billion a year. Most of the cost is from addition expenses for ships staying at sea longer as they avoid going anywhere near Somalia. This has cost Egypt over 20 percent of the traffic through the Suez canal, which amounts to over a billion dollars a year in lost revenue. The anti-piracy patrol costs nearly a billion dollars a year, but most of the extra costs hit the shipping companies, and their customers, who pay more for ships spending more time at sea, or the expense of additional security measures.

The problem is that piracy is a gamble, but a better gamble than anything else on offer for would-be pirates. A small vessel, a crew willing to fight, and some inexpensive weapons can be translated into a multi-million dollar jackpot. International navies on patrol rarely do more than scare off attempts, so the risk to the pirates is still low even when a patrol is in the area. Given the situation on land, it is logical for pirates to continue attacking ships passing the Somali coastline.

January 10, 2011

Fighting pirates, privately

Filed under: Africa, Economics, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:42

Strategy Page reports on a new initiative to combat the problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia:

A major British insurer (Jardine Lloyd Thompson) is organizing a private armed escort service for ships operating off Somalia. Called the Convoy Escort Programme (CEP), the 18 small patrol boats will offer armed escort through the Gulf of Aden, and reduce overall security and insurance costs for ships using the service. It’s all about money, as the insurance companies don’t like the spiraling ransom costs, and especially the unpredictability of the pirates. While the insurance companies can pass the costs onto those who buy their insurance, the pirates could rapidly increase the number of ships their steal, and force the insurance companies to incur losses, not to mention the risk of more ships foregoing insurance and using increased shipboard security and armed guards.

The CEP is not a done deal yet. A country has to sign on to allow the patrol boats to fly their flag (and thus provide a national legal system to operate under). The patrol boats will carry heavy machine-guns (12.7mm/.50 cal), armed crews (all former military) and small boats to check suspected pirates. CEP will coordinate with the anti-piracy patrol, and let the larger warships spend more time pursuing the pirates that are now operating much farther from the Somali coast.

This may not be the answer, but it shows that creativity isn’t dead in the insurance industry.

March 26, 2010

Somali pirates

Filed under: Africa, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:03

Strategy Page has a useful round-up of information on the pirates and their operating methods:

The piracy has been a growing problem off the Somali coast for over a decade. The problem now is that there are thousands of experienced pirates. And these guys have worked out a system that is very lucrative, and not very risky. For most of the past decade, the pirates preyed on foreign fishing boats and the small, often sail powered, cargo boats th[at] move close (within a hundred kilometers) [to] the shore. During that time, the pirates developed contacts with businessmen in the Persian Gulf who could be used to negotiate (for a percentage) the ransoms with insurance companies and shipping firms. [. . .]

Big ships have small crews (12-30 sailors). Attacking at night finds most of the crew asleep. Rarely do these ships have any armed security. Ships can post additional lookouts when in areas believed to have pirates. Once pirates (speedboats full of armed men) are spotted, ships can increase speed (a large ship running at full speed, about 40+ kilometers an hour, can outrun most of the current speed boats the pirates have), and have fire hoses ready to be used to repel boarders. [. . .]

Now that the pirates have demonstrated their ability to operate far (over 700 kilometers) from shore, it’s no longer possible to just use naval patrols and convoy escorts. This works in the Gulf of Aden, but father off the Somali coast, there is simply too much area to patrol. With ocean going mother ships, the pirates can operate anywhere in the region. Between the Gulf of Aden, and the Straits of Malacca to the east (between Singapore and Indonesia), you have a third of the worlds shipping. All are now at risk. Convoys for all these ships would require more warships (over a hundred) than can be obtained.

November 24, 2009

RN ship stood by, failing to do anything

Filed under: Africa, Britain, Bureaucracy, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:11

Max Hastings contrasts the Royal Navy of Churchill’s day with the modern one:

On February 16, 1940, the destroyer Cossack, acting on Churchill’s personal orders, steamed headlong into neutral Norwegian territorial waters in defiance of international law, boarded the German freighter Altmark and freed 299 captive British merchant seamen.

Legend held that the first the prisoners knew of their deliverance was a shout down a hatchway from a sailor on deck: ‘The Navy’s here!’ The episode passed into folklore, exemplifying the Royal Navy’s centuries-old tradition of triumphant boldness.

On October 28, 2009, the armed Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker Wave Knight met Somali pirates transferring the British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler from their yacht Lynn Rival to a hijacked Singaporean container vessel.

When warning shots from Wave Knight failed to deter the pirates, its 100-strong crew stood by and did . . . absolutely nothing.

We know of this sorry incident only because a British sailor leaked the truth. The Ministry of Defence’s original statement declared, evasively and deceitfully, that Wave Knight had encountered the yacht unmanned. Nothing was said about the British ship witnessing the hostages’ removal.

I guess it’s a sign of progress that the Somali pirates were content with just capturing two civilians and didn’t also take the Wave Knight and her crew as well. That might count as a win — no formal inquiry, so the lawyers won’t be sent in to bayonet the survivors.

Today, instead, lawyers reign supreme, not least in the Ministry of Defence and even on Afghan and Iraqi battlefields. No warship’s captain feels able to take action that might breach the rights of others, even when those others are murderous Somalis.

The Royal Navy’s officers in the Indian Ocean know that every shot they fire is liable to be the subject of a later inquiry, possible litigation, even a criminal trial.

Then there is the galling question of human rights. You can almost hear the MoD’s solicitors putting forward the following argument: you have to be careful because any captured pirates might claim political asylum in the UK and that it would be a breach of their rights to send them back to the anarchy in Somalia.

Alternatively, suppose a pirate swims ashore from a craft sunk by the Navy, and uses some saved-up hijack plunder to fly to Europe. He finds a smart human rights lawyer and pleads that he was an innocent fisherman pulling in his nets when British cannon fire killed half his family.

The European Court in Strasbourg might award him almost as much booty as he would gain from ransoming a family of European yachtsmen.

It’s so bad that it may be a serious breach of human rights to refer to the pirates as pirates . . .

August 4, 2009

Libertarian paradise

Filed under: Africa, Humour, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:25

Just in case you think that anarchy is great, here’s visual evidence to back up your theories:

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