The guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge tows the lifeboat from the Maersk Alabama to the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer on April 13, 2009. Photo: U.S. Navy

On April 8, 2009, four pirates armed with AK-47s clambered up the side of the U.S.-flagged container ship Maersk Alabama, sailing off the coast of Somalia. But after a brief scuffle with some of the 20 crewmembers, the pirates opted to abandon the 508-foot long ship, sailing off in one of its motorized lifeboats. They may not have captured the Maersk Alabama, nor looted its millions of dollars’ worth of food and humanitarian aid bound for Kenya, but they didn’t leave empty handed. The pirates had a captive: Maersk Alabama‘s captain, Richard Phillips.

Four days later, three of the four pirates were dead — each from a single .30-caliber rifle bullet to his brain, courtesy of the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six. The fourth pirate, just 16 years old, was in Navy custody. And Phillips was on his way home, unharmed but for the psychological strain from four days in captivity in a sweltering lifeboat, unsure whether he would live or die.

The precision killing of the three pirates by six members of SEAL Team Six, the same unit that would later kill Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout, has rarely been described in detail. Retired Rear Adm. Terry McKnight, who commanded U.S. naval forces off Somalia during the Maersk Alabama standoff, devotes 45 pages of his new book Pirate Alley to the people, methods, equipment and even politics behind Phillips’ daring rescue.

Read the rest at Danger Room.

U.S. Navy SEAL commandos deployed to the Horn of Africa have refined hostage rescue to a lethal art. But their recent success in retrieving kidnapped Westerners comes at a cost. Every rescue forces Somali criminals and terrorists to change their own tactics. The result is an arms race of sorts as SEALs and kidnappers try to stay ahead of the other. Aid workers, journalists and ship’s crews — the usual targets of Somali ransom plots — are caught in the middle.

Sustained U.S. Special Forces operations in the Horn of Africa date to the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks. The Pentagon established a multi-national counter-terrorism force at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti that, over time, expanded to also support operations against Somali pirates and criminal gangs.

In April 2009, pirates hijacked the U.S. merchant vessel Maersk Alabama and kidnapped captain Richard Phillips. Navy SEALs positioned on the deck of the destroyer USS Bainbridge shot and killed three pirates and captured a fourth, freeing Phillips from the lifeboat where he was being held. The rescue drew world attention to the growing capabilities of Navy commando forces in East Africa. The SEALs support, and are supported by, a powerful mix of Navy, Army and Air Force special operators, CIA agents, covert aircraft, armed drones and warships.

Perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of the SEALs’ rescue skills occurred after the October kidnapping by Somali criminals of American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Thisted, employees of a Danish demining organization working in central Somalia. On Jan. 25, SEALs parachuted from a military cargo plane at night, silently descending on the compound where the deminers were being held. The SEALs killed nine guards and rescued Buchanan and Thisted. U.S. helicopters swooped in to spirit away the deminers and the SEALs.

But that had a chilling effect on another kidnapping case. In early January, German-American writer Michael Scott Moore was kidnapped in central Somalia while reporting on piracy and development. Moore was being held near the town of Hobyo when the SEALs came for the deminers. “The rescue changed the dynamics of Somali kidnapping,” Somalia Report magazine noted in its extensive coverage of the SEALs’ operations.

Moore’s captors moved him to a remote area, doubled the number of men guarding him and boosted his ransom from the usual $1 million to $20 million. In a video obtained by Somalia Report, the kidnappers said the high ransom was payment for the nine men — clansmen of Moore’s abductors — who were killed by the SEALs on Jan. 25.

The kidnappers also truncated their timetable for obtaining a ransom. In the past, Somali criminals have been willing to hold onto captives for many months or even years while negotiating for payment. But with the threat of killer SEALs descending from the sky, on May 18 Moore’s abductors demanded payment within three days or they would sell the writer to the Al Shabab terror group, they said.

Al Shabab is less likely to even want to ransom a captive when it could merely execute them for the terror value.  At the time of writing it was unclear whether the captors had made good on their threat.

In any event, the stakes are getting higher in Somalia’s decades-long crisis of terror, piracy and criminality. Navy SEALs are better than ever at rescuing heavily-guarded captives from remote locations. But as the desperate kidnappers counter with more guards, better defensive positions and tougher demands, will the SEALs be able to continue their impressive record of rescues?

Originally published in Warships International Fleet Review.

In this video posted to Liveleak yesterday, an English-speaking shipboard private security team fires upon, and apparently wounds or kills, at least two groups of pirates attempting to hijack what seems to be a large tanker ship. The incident probably occurred off the Somali coast.

After years of fruitless efforts to deter piracy by naval forces, shipping companies have increasingly turned to private guards to defend ships.

Photo via Theo Spark.

Don’t accuse Texas of being gun-shy. This morning, the Lone Star State commissioned the second out of six armored gunboats now being sent to the Rio Grande to fight Mexico’s drug traffickers.

According to press reports, the Texas Department of Public Safety — state police who also oversee the Texas Rangers — is spending a total of $3.5 million to outfit six high-speed vessels with machine guns and armor plating. The boats, like the one commissioned in Austin this morning and named after fallen State Trooper David Irvine Rucker, are expected to begin operations this month (photos here). It’s all part of a plan to patrol the river, lakes and the ship channel along the Gulf of Mexico to watch for drug smugglers and pirates.

The boats have drawn comparison to Vietnam-era Patrol Fast Craft boats, or Swift Boats. But they’re a bit smaller, with a length of 34 feet in comparison to the Swift Boat’s 50. Swift Boats were also armed with high-explosive mortars, which will not be on board the gunboats. Still, they’re pretty menacing. The gunboats will reportedly carry an arsenal of six mounted machine guns apiece. The Rio Grande is also narrow and not very deep, hence the small size and ability to operate in as little as two feet of water, according to Dallas TV news station WFAA.

“Cartel operatives have fired at law enforcement officers while they were attempting to interdict drug loads on the Rio Grande River. When our officers come under fire from these weapons, we want to afford them every opportunity to return home safely from each patrol mission,” Tom Vinger, assistant chief of public affairs for the department, told the San Angelo Standard-Times.

Read the rest at Danger Room.

Dead Boko Haram members. Time photo.

Côte d’Ivoire
Soldiers killed seven youths over the last few days. The incident occurred in Vavoua, some 450 kilometers away from Abidjan. As a young man tried to avoid a roadblock of the national army — which many Ivorians accuse of leveraging illegal taxes and tolls at such roadblocks — he was chased by soldiers and beaten to death. The next day, some hundred local youths marched towards an army camp, armed with clubs and rifles. In what authorities described as “losing control,” some of the soldiers started shooting and killed six further young men.

Roadblocks and illegal taxing has been a problem in Côte d’Ivoire for years now, as the split between a rebel-controlled north and a government-dominated south has limited the capacity of authorities to effectively police the behaviour of the security forces. It will be interesting to observe if president Ouattara will be able to wrest these long-held benefits from them, after he has leaned heavily on former rebel forces to oust rival Laurent Gbagbo.

Nigeria
As fuel prices skyrocketed after a cut in subsidies, Lagos and other cities were hit by huge protests. At least one protester died after being shot by police, but in most cases the marches remained peaceful. The price of petrol more than doubled at the pump after the government phased out a $8-billion subsidy at the beginning of this year. Despite being one of the world’s largest crude oil producers for many years now, Nigeria still has to import refined petroleum products, as it only has very limited refining capacities inside the country.

Meanwhile, the north of the country saw some of the worst violence ever over Christmas, when the terror group Boko Haram bombed churches and attacked security forces, leaving scores of people dead. President Goodluck Jonathan reacted by declaring an indefinite state of emergency in the northern states, while several Christian groups threatened to retaliate against future attacks. Despite heavy-handed efforts of the security services over the last few years, Boko Haram has been able to constantly launch more sophisticated attacks. While a new security doctrine now came into effect, which “puts security of Nigerians first,” it can be doubted that the authorities will be able to reduce the threat posed by religious extremism if they do not tackle the underlying grievances of the mostly young men who sympathize and fight for Boko Haram.

Somalia
The European Commission has asked its military planning committee to draw up plans to include military action on land against Somali pirates. Currently, the European navy mission ATALANTA is carrying out patrol duties and operations against suspected pirate vessels in front of the Somali coast, together with the navies of a handful of other countries. So far, these efforts have been met with relatively little success, while costing around €8 million per year. It remains unclear though, how military interventions on Somali soil against assets and infrastructure used by pirates would look like. Such interventions would likely expose European military personnel to a far greater risk than current operations and would also include the danger of harming civilians and their property in a country which has been ravaged by civil war for more than 20 years now.

South Sudan
Interethnic strife has griped parts of South Sudan, where armed Luo Nuer militias attacked refugees of the Murle ethnic group and killed possibly hundreds of people, before the national army and U.N. peacekeepers were able to evacuate the civilians. The clashes come after a long-running dispute between the two groups who accuse each other of conducting cattle raids. While this is only the latest incidence in a long chain of violent events in South Sudan — some also involving its northern neighbour and namesake — it further showcases the limited capacity of the young nation to provide security for its people.

Dadaab. U.N. photo.

A campaign of kidnapping that began at sea with Somali pirates has expanded onto land and across Somalia’s borders. Pirates and their allies in the Somali terror group al-Shabab have begun targeting tourists and aid workers in Kenya and Puntland, a mostly self-governing region in northern Somalia.

The latest victim of the abduction squads: a American woman, grabbed in Puntland apparently on Wednesday along with a Danish colleague. The 32-year-old former teacher was in Puntland to help defuse mines leftover from the region’s years of warfare. The fall-out from the kidnapping in an already tense region is yet to be seen.

Even leaving aside piracy, abduction has long been a favorite tactic of Somali extremists. But until recently, the targets were mostly Somalis and foreign journalists and humanitarians working in southern Somalia. The expansion of the kidnapping campaign into Kenya has provoked retaliatory attacks by, so far, Kenya and France — with the U.S. considering escalated intervention even before the American was taken.

A 56-year-old British tourist was the first to be kidnapped. On Sept. 11, pirates slipped into a resort in Kiwayu, in Kenya near the Somali border. The attackers seized Judith Tebbut and shot dead her 58-year-old husband David. Kenyan authorities have arrested two men in connection with the crime, but Tebbutt remains missing.

Read the rest at Danger Room.

Ship guard. Via Lockforce.

In two years of operations, a Virginia-based maritime security company has escorted commercial vessels through pirate-infested East African waters 300 times without incident. Nexus Consulting Group of Alexandria’s impressive record is the latest evidence of a surprising turn in the five-year-old international war on Somali pirates. More and more, for-profit security guards are taking over from the world’s navies on the maritime front lines.

But as it grows its protection business, Nexus — “the world’s leading provider of private maritime security solutions,” according to a company press release — might want to heed the hard lessons learned by one of its rivals. As it turns out, the ship-protection biz is rife with risk, of the diplomatic and AK-47-wielding variety. Carrying guns aboard commercial ships has the potential to cause all kinds of legal problems.

Read the rest at Danger Room.

USS Donald Cook. David Axe photo.

The tide seemed to turn in an instant. After six months of fighting and thousands of NATO air sorties, the Libyan civil war rapidly reached its endgame late last month, as internationally-backed rebel fighters stormed Tripoli.

Mostly, it was a victory for the Libyan people, who have long suffered under Moammar Gadhafi’s dictatorial rule. But the fall of Tripoli was also an apparent success for a new U.S. military strategy, one gaining favor as the bloody, expensive land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan slowly wind down.

It’s called ‘offshore balancing,’ and it’s an approach meant to minimize long-term deployments of large ground armies by emphasizing air and naval forces working in conjunction with local and regional “proxy” armies. In coming years, offshore balancing could guide the United States’ interventions in world crises, particularly in the Asia-Pacific.

Any U.S. president thinking of fighting another land war in Asia should “have his head examined,” former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in February. In 2009, Vice President Joe Biden famously proposed quickly off-shoring the Afghanistan war, a notion Barack Obama rejected in favour of a slowly-shrinking major ground presence through 2014, with a likely shift to offshore balancing after that date.

“The Libyan intervention, which involves only air and naval assets and no ground forces, is an excellent example of offshore balancing,” wrote Lawrence Korb, a veteran analyst with the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. But there’s an even better example, one that could either reinforce support for offshore balancing or doom the concept – and at the very least serves as an important test case.

The complex U.S.-led intervention in Somalia, a decade in the making, represents offshore balancing at its most potent and urgent. The Libyan rebellion was outside the United States’ core interests. For Washington, intervening in Libya was optional. But Somalia, a failed state since 1991 and an Al Qaeda safe haven, represents a direct threat to the United States, and indeed has inspired the first American suicide bombers.

If offshore balancing, with its emphasis on air and sea power and proxy armies, is to define the U.S. strategic approach to Asia and the Pacific, it first must succeed in Somalia.

Read the rest at The Diplomat.

PVI photo.

In December, a vessel with four men aboard eased into the port of Massawa in the East African country of Eritrea. It was an unplanned stop. The ship, operated by Protection Vessels International, a British company, had encountered rough weather and run short of fuel while sailing through pirate-infested waters around the island of Romia.

At any other time, under any other circumstances, the vessel’s fuel call would have been routine. But this was no typical ship — and times were not normal. What happened after the vessel entered Massawa is indicative of a dangerous, and sometimes confusing, new era for seafarers in East African waters.

For five years now, pirates have waged an escalating campaign of banditry and kidnapping against the roughly 25,000 commercial vessels that pass through the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean every year. Pirates, armed with guns and rockets and riding in fast fishing boats called “skiffs,” have captured an average of 40 large vessels a year. Ransoms can be a million dollars or more. Last year, eight seafarers died in pirate attacks.

Today around 30 warships from a dozen nations patrol these waters. But with nearly 3 million square miles of ocean within range of pirate enclaves, the warships are spread too thinly to prevent most attacks. Increasingly, the larger shipping lines are turning to armed guards — former military personnel, mostly — to protect vessels during their transits.

Read the rest at Offiziere.ch.

PVI Maritime Security on watch in the Gulf of Aden, April 2011. PVI photo.

It was a normal morning in April last year. Normal, that is, by the crazy standards of the fishermen, ship’s crews, navy sailors and Somali pirates plying their dangerous trades on 2.5 million square miles of lawless ocean stretching from India to Kenya.

“Dave,” a 44-year-old from Wiltshire in southwest England, was standing watch on the upper deck of a commercial car carrier bound from Mumbai to Mombasa. Scanning the horizon with a pair of high-powered binoculars, the former British Royal Marine of 24 years’ experience spotted something suspicious ahead of the carrier: a small freighter matching the profile of a pirate “mothership,” a sort of floating base for heavily armed sea bandits and their small boats.

What happened next was like something out of a Hollywood thriller. But for Dave and a fast-growing number of for-profit ship guards, it was just another day on the job — and evidence of a surprising turn in the years-old, international war on piracy.

The world’s governments are waking up to the sobering fact that the gazillion-dollar warships they’ve sent to the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean can’t keep up with the region’s elusive pirates. The hijackers’ simple, brutal tactics are too effective. Their business model is too attractive. And they’ve got nothing to lose but their lives.

The days are probably numbered for 10,000-ton Burke-class destroyers chasing down illiterate Somali thugs sailing in souped-up fishing boats called “skiffs.” The future of the piracy war could belong to Dave and guys like him, standing lonely guard on gigantic, fortified commercial vessels speeding through pirate-infested waters.

Destroyers are expensive and ill-suited to long, tedious piracy patrols. Armed guards are comparatively cheap and, as Dave proved that April morning, highly effective. Sure, guards come with their own limitations and complications. But hiring professional ship-protectors beats the alternative: an endless, pointless military exercise.

Dave and his three teammates from Protection Vessels International, a 3-year-old, English firm offering “safe passage for vessels, master and crew through high-risk environments,” watched as the suspected pirate mothership silently approached the car carrier. “When it got to approximately seven miles distance, we saw a small craft being launched from it and it began to approach from the port side at 23 knots,” Dave recalled. The boat carried four men, at least two of them armed with AK-47s.

That’s when the PVI guards, all former Royal Marines, knew for sure that the carrier was under attack. A hijacking could mean: months of captivity and abuse for Dave, his teammates and the ship’s crew; a multimillion-dollar ransom for the vessel’s owner; and a small but meaningful blow to an already-rickety world economy. “We immediately increased speed to 19 knots, altered course, activated the piracy alarm and informed [the authorities],” Dave told Danger Room.

They prepared for battle, “kitting up” with body armor, helmets, warning flares and rifles. At that moment the front line of the piracy war, which has claimed scores of lives on both sides and cost ten of billions of dollars in ransoms, insurance premiums and lost property, intersected the fast-shrinking span of water between his ship and the approaching pirate skiff.

Read the rest at Danger Room.

In a bloody, chaotic, early-morning spasm on Feb. 21, Somali pirates killed four American missionaries captured three days earlier aboard the yacht Quest. The U.S. Navy responded, killing two pirates and seizing 15 live pirates.

The incident was among the bloodiest ever in the years-long international “war on piracy,” and marked the first time pirates have killed American citizens. For Washington, the implications are enormous. Now that American blood has been shed, U.S. forces could become more aggressive in their efforts to stop Somali pirates. The bandits, in return, might escalate their own attacks.

However, it’s more likely that America will continue with its current, ineffective approach to the piracy problem. While the killings have horrified and angered many Americans, those feelings can be fleeting. A lack of political willpower could prevent a fresh, more effective strategy for beating sea bandits.

The tragedy began on Feb. 18, when as many as 19 pirates boarded Quest. Aboard were four people in the late middle age: married vessel-owners Scott Underwood Adam and Jean Savage Adam, and passengers Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle. The Americans were reportedly transporting Bibles to distribute in countries they visited. They had sailed near the East African coast despite warnings not to do so.

Shortly after the pirates captured Quest, a powerful U.S. Navy force – part of the 30-warship international flotilla patrolling the Indian Ocean – chased after the yacht. The U.S. vessels included the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the cruiser USS Leyte Gulf and the destroyers USS Sterett and USS Bulkeley.

Sterett, with a SEAL team aboard, caught up to Quest and began shadowing it. Two pirates came aboard Sterettto negotiate with a Federal Bureau of Investigations team. Talks were ongoing when, around 8:00 in the morning on the third day, someone aboard Quest fired a rocket at Sterett. U.S. sailors heard the sounds of gunfire – presumably the pirates shooting the Adams, Macay and Riggle.

SEALs promptly boarded the yacht, killing two pirates – one by gunfire and the other by knife – and capturing 13 live pirates aboard the vessel (in addition to the two already on Sterett), plus the bodies of two pirates apparently slain in an earlier altercation between the bandits. The four American victims were still alive – but barely. “Despite immediate steps to provide life-saving care, all four hostages ultimately died of their wounds,” the Navy said in a statement.

It’s unclear why the pirates killed the missionaries. Historically, Somali pirates have been careful to avoid harming their captives. “Hostages — especially Westerners — are our only assets, so we try our best to avoid killing them,” a pirate told Wired in 2009. But the killings of pirates have occasionally provoked promises of vengeance from surviving bandits. “We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now,” one pirate announced in 2008, after U.S. and French forces killed several pirates during separate rescue operations.

There have been signs that pirates are becoming more brutal. In January, South Korean Special Forces killed eight pirates in a rescue operation that liberated 21 hostages. “We never planned to kill, but now we shall seek revenge,” a pirate told Reuters.

In the months following that raid, pirates were seen abusing other South Korean captives. “There have been regular manifestations of systematic torture,” Maj. Gen. Buster Howes, chief of the E.U. counter-piracy force, told the Associated Press in February.

The killings of the four Americans might have been motivated by revenge, but it’s equally possible the murders were the result of a disagreement between the pirates – the same disagreement that earlier had resulted in the deaths of two members of the marauders’ band. Eric Wertheim, author of Combat Fleets of the World, noted the “sizable force” of pirates aboard Quest. so many pirates involved, shares of any ransom would have been relatively diminished – and that could have raised tensions among the bandits.

A better understanding of the circumstances surrounding the killings might have to wait until the 15 captured pirates stand trial in the United States. In the meantime, the military could come under pressure to pursue a more aggressive counter-piracy strategy.

Even so, the Pentagon is being careful not to promise too much. In the days following the killings, top U.S. officers repeated offered their condolences to the victims’ families, but did not specify how the military might prevent similar murders in the future. “There’s an international focus on this, and rightfully, so we’ll continue to pursue it,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said vaguely.

In any event, it’s clear that the current sea-based strategy is not working to deter pirates. “The reason it’s not working is history shows fairly clearly that if you want take on pirates, you can’t do it just from the water alone,” retired Marine Maj. Gen. Tom Wilkerson said. “You cannot allow them a land sanctuary.”

Greater involvement on land could take the form of raids on pirate bases to deny them sanctuary, or what independent naval analyst Martin Murphy described as “greater political-economic engagement with Puntland,” the semi-autonomous region of Somalia where many pirates are based. A revamped strategy might even combine raids and political efforts.

Wilkerson proposed that the U.S. military model future counter-piracy raids on its operations over Pakistan and Afghanistan. In those countries, the Americans use drone aircraft to spot targets and drones and Special Forces to attack them. “We could use the same techniques that are helping us take out terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan to take out pirates in Somalia,” Wilkerson said.

Murphy said he doubts this will happen. He is also skeptical that the Pentagon will send any additional forces to the Indian Ocean. “There is going to be pressure for more action, although it is unclear to me what this will amount to much given there is no political appetite for raiding pirate bases or putting the number of naval assets in to the region that the problem demands.”

The political approach, Murphy said, “is the only productive course.” But that, too, requires an appetite for intervention that might be lacking in the U.S. administration and the electorate. Americans are likely to demand a solution to the piracy problem, but unlikely to support the hard work a solution implies. As dismay over the killings fades, so too will enthusiasm for an escalated counter-piracy campaign. Despite February’s brutal slayings, the Americans might ultimately continue their current, ineffective strategy for defeating pirates.

Originally published in Warships International Fleet Review.

Pirates. Navy photo.

In February, Somali pirates kidnapped four American yachters near Oman. The pirates, pursued by U.S. warships, then fled with their hostages in the captured 58-foot S/V Quest toward Somalia. Four days later, as the yacht sailed closer to the pirates’ base, a confrontation broke out. A rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the destroyer USS Sterett. The yachters were then executed. Several pirates died.

Now, Somalia Report has published an exclusive story about the identity of the pirates’ negotiator and consultant, his capture by the FBI, and his role as “a new face in the piracy industry.”

Mohammad Saaili Shibin, aka “Mohamed Salah Ali Shibin” aka “Khalif Ahmed Shibin,” is accused by the U.S. of being the negotiator and working with another accomplice to research the victims on the internet. The owners of the 58 foot yacht S/V Quest, Scott and Jean Adam, and crew Phyllis Macay and Bob Rigglehad kept a blog on their travels and goals which was used by the Shibiin to determine their worth as hostages. The pirates who took the American’s hostage were from the “Central Regional Coast Guard” and reports indicate there was a feud between two groups as to whether the hostages should be used to swap for the recently convicted teenager or simply held for ransom. …

According to his cousin, Mohamed Shibin is actually 51 years old, never married and used to be a manager of a private institute in Bosasso. His family believes the accusation about helping the pirates is propaganda and “extremely exaggerated.” Shibin, however, according to U.S. law enforcement documents and statements, has confessed to his role as negotiator in this and other events.

Shibin was the project Coordinator of Africa Oil in Puntland between 2008 and 2009 and worked as a translator in mid 2009. He become a negotiator and translator for the pirates a few months later and quickly became a trusted interlocutor. According to pirates Somalia Report has interviewed, Shibin was well known as the “go to” consultant to handle negotations.

Shibin is a new face in the piracy industry. Unlike the ragged young hijackers, he has a college education, speaks English, Italian, Somalia, Arabic, French. The United States hopes to use three conspiracy based charges against Shibin that include Piracy Under Law of Nations, Conspiracy to Commit Kidnapping, Possess, Use, Brandish and Discharge a Firearm During a Crime of Violence.” If Shabin gets a good lawyer, it might be quite difficult to prove that he aided and abetted and conspired with the other 14 pirates.

Read the rest at Somalia Report.