Article

2008-09-30 Africa Horn

Navy Warships Monitor Boat Hijacked by Somali Pirates

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Posted by Fred 2008-09-30 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11140 views ] Top

#1 "...until the last one of us dies."

Works for us. Sometime this evening, perhaps?

Posted by PBMcL 2008-09-30 00:27|| 2008-09-30 00:27|| Front Page Top

#2 WTF is this 12-mile territorial boundary crap????!!! Somalia is a non-state, harboring pirates. May Russia will show some stones in dealing with this pestilence.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2008-09-30 00:47|| 2008-09-30 00:47|| Front Page Top

#3 I feel somewhat nostalgic.

Posted by newc">newc 2008-09-30 00:55|| 2008-09-30 00:55|| Front Page Top

#4 #2 WTF is this 12-mile territorial boundary crap????!!! Somalia is a non-state, harboring pirates. May Russia will show some stones in dealing with this pestilence.
Posted by: Alaska Paul 2008-09-30 00:47

MAP of Somalia, Somalia Coast, Gulf of Aden, Eastern End of the Indian Ocean and A tiny bit of the Red Sea

Click Pic For Larger .JPG

/Too bad we can't click the pic for the entire Civilized World to GROW larger stones..

Posted by RD">RD 2008-09-30 04:53|| 2008-09-30 04:53|| Front Page Top

#5 So the Barbary Pirates could have thumbed their nose at the marines from just inside the 12 mile demarcation point?

Bullsh*t!!!
Blow them out of the water.
This is getting ridiculous.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-09-30 08:11|| 2008-09-30 08:11|| Front Page Top

#6 Any follow-up to the MV Iran Deyanat story?

Posted by Woozle Unusosing8053 2008-09-30 09:07|| 2008-09-30 09:07|| Front Page Top

#7 let them try too offload the tanks 12 miles out. couldn't be too easy too do . or better yet just blow their ass out of the water and say it was work related accident

Posted by sinse 2008-09-30 10:12|| 2008-09-30 10:12|| Front Page Top

#8 The Royal Navy used to instruct it's Captains, with regard to the enemy: "Take, burn, sink or destroy"

Posted by Grunter 2008-09-30 10:55|| 2008-09-30 10:55|| Front Page Top

#9 Ready the for'ard five-inch gun! Surface action port!

Posted by mojo">mojo 2008-09-30 11:03|| 2008-09-30 11:03|| Front Page Top

#10 Now, now, you guys. There are hostages on board that ship. They may only be Russians but it's still not our way to endanger them. Keep the ship in sight and let the Russians figure out what to do. It's bound to be fun to watch.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-09-30 11:32|| 2008-09-30 11:32|| Front Page Top

#11 But after the Russians are finished sink every ship, boat and dinghy in every Somali port. Even if they're not pirates it's what they get for harboring pirates and living in a failed state. It's what they get for being Somalis.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-09-30 11:43|| 2008-09-30 11:43|| Front Page Top

#12 Update on the MV Iran Deyanat...

The pirates were sickened because of their contact with the seized cargo, according to Hassan Osman, the Somali minister of Minerals and Oil, who met with the pirates to facilitate negotiations. "That ship is unusual," Osman told the Long War Journal, an online news source that covers the War on Terror. "It is not carrying a normal shipment."

The pirates reportedly were in talks to sell the ship back to Iran, but the deal fell through when the pirates were poisoned by the cargo, according to Andrew Mwangura, director of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Program. "Yes, some of them have died," he told the Long War Journal. "Our sources say [the ship] contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals."

Iran has called the allegations a "sheer lie," and said that the ship "had no dangerous consignment on board," according to Iranian news source Press TV. Iran says the merchant vessel was shipping iron ore from a port in China to Amsterdam.

The ship's contents are still unclear, but the reported deaths and skin abrasions have raised concerns that it could be more than meets the eye.

The massive shipping company that controls the vessel, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL), was recently designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury over nuclear proliferation concerns. IRISL, which is accused of falsifying documents to facilitate the shipment of weapons and chemicals for use in Iran's missile program, is blocked from moving money through U.S. banks as well as from carrying food and medical supplies as part of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. "IRISL's actions are part of a broader pattern of deception and fabrication that Iran uses to advance its nuclear and missile programs," said Stuart Levey, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

The U.S. government has made no accusation against IRISL regarding the Iran Denayat; the State Department would not comment on reports of its suspicious cargo. "I don't have any information on that case," said State Department spokesman Curtis Cooper. "We're aware that there are currently 12 other hijacked ships off the Somali coast. This is obviously something that is disturbing."

Experts on Somalia are dubious of claims made by the country's provisional government, whose president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, reportedly has family ties to the pirates. "I'm not saying it's impossible that this has happened, but I'd take anything they say with a great deal of salt," said J. Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. "They have made fanciful claims before in the hopes of attracting U.S. and other international attention."

Pham said that the 14 provisional governments that have ruled Somalia since 1991 have all relied on foreign aid for support and profit and could be trying to attract attention by inflating the current crisis."Would it be beyond them to raise the specter of WMDs in order to attract resources and international assistance? The only source of revenue for this government is foreign aid," he told FOXNews.com.

Chemical experts say the reports sound inconsistent with chemical poisoning, but may reflect the effects of exposure to radiation. "It's baffling," said Jonathan Tucker, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "I'm not aware of any chemical agent that produces loss of hair within a few days. That's more suggestive of high levels of radioactive waste." Tucker, a chemical and biological weapons expert, said that Chinese companies have been implicated in selling Iran so-called dual-use chemicals, legal ingredients that can be processed into chemical weapons.

The U.S. government says that Iran maintains facilities to process those chemicals as part of a chemical and biological weapons program. "Iran continues to seek dual-use technologies that could be used for biological warfare," said Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell in testimony before Congress in February.

But while Iran has purchased and shipped such chemicals in the past, it remains unclear whether the Iran Deyanat contains any illegal chemicals or harmful agents. "A number of Chinese companies have been implicated in this illicit trade, but I've never heard of extremely toxic chemicals being shipped," Tucker told FOXNews.com. "It's very rare it's very unlikely that a country would ship manufactured weapons from one country to another."

Posted by tu3031 2008-09-30 12:35|| 2008-09-30 12:35|| Front Page Top

#13 They are UKRAINIANS not Russians. Ukraine, who is seeking NATO membership (or was ...)

Posted by lotp 2008-09-30 12:39|| 2008-09-30 12:39|| Front Page Top

#14 And they've made the big time. An interview with the Times...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/world/africa/01pirates.html?ref=world

Posted by tu3031 2008-09-30 12:45|| 2008-09-30 12:45|| Front Page Top

#15 You have to wonder what the ship is transporting.

Posted by JohnQC 2008-09-30 13:13|| 2008-09-30 13:13|| Front Page Top

#16 From tu's link:

In a 45-minute-long interview, Mr. Sugule expounded on everything from what the pirates want just money to why they were doing this to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters to what they eat rice, meat, bread, spaghetti, you know, normal human-being food.

He said that so far, in the eyes of the world, the pirates had been misunderstood. We dont consider ourselves sea bandits, he said. We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.

When asked why the pirates needed $20 million to protect themselves from hunger, Mr. Sugule laughed over the phone and said: Because we have a lot of men.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There you have it..

One Human Being's Pirate is a Muslim's Sea Scout!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Heh, Ima stinking now that the Muslim Pirates Invented the entire Toxic Contamination story up...

Muslim Pirate Logic:
An insurance policy to keep the USA-West from firing up the ship and spreading some of the so called "Toxic Trash" up.

If the ship were full of Toxics no pirate would stay aboard even in port!

Posted by RD">RD 2008-09-30 14:00|| 2008-09-30 14:00|| Front Page Top

#17 Time for a good old fashioned "Q Ship".

Posted by Total War">Total War 2008-09-30 14:03|| 2008-09-30 14:03|| Front Page Top

#18 Re: MV IRAN DEYANET
"The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest,it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and "industrial products" purchased by a German client."
Were there "cargo stops" along the way??

Posted by Tom- Pa 2008-09-30 14:07|| 2008-09-30 14:07|| Front Page Top

#19 Time for a good old fashioned "Q Ship".
Foreeeee!

Posted by .5MT 2008-09-30 14:13|| 2008-09-30 14:13|| Front Page Top

#20 My guess is rocket oxidizer.

Posted by ed 2008-09-30 14:24|| 2008-09-30 14:24|| Front Page Top

#21 Navy: "Just think of us as your worst friggin' nightmare."

Posted by mojo">mojo 2008-09-30 14:49|| 2008-09-30 14:49|| Front Page Top

#22 How many Seals can dance under the hull of a Ukranian freighter?

Posted by Javimble Hitler2837 2008-09-30 16:16|| 2008-09-30 16:16|| Front Page Top

#23 Ummm, as many as needed?

Posted by Redneck Jim">Redneck Jim 2008-09-30 19:27|| 2008-09-30 19:27|| Front Page Top

#24 20: My guess is rocket oxidizer.

Hadn't thought about that one, most rocket/missle fuels are poison, many are very nasty poisons.

Posted by Redneck Jim">Redneck Jim 2008-09-30 19:31|| 2008-09-30 19:31|| Front Page Top

#25 How many Seals can dance under the hull of a Ukranian freighter?

If they can get the ship-layout plans, they can board it. The crew gets rescued and the Faina then becomes evidence (likely one reason why the Russians have an interest).

But with rehearsals, clearances, orders from national authority, etc. that may take a bit longer than most Rantburgers seem to want.

Posted by Pappy 2008-09-30 21:57|| 2008-09-30 21:57|| Front Page Top

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