The Pirates of Somalia

by Jay Bahadur

  JUNE 27, 2005: The World Food Programme transport MV Semlow is hijacked by pirates under the command of Mohamed Abdi Hassan “Afweyne.” Attacks on food aid transports continue until the French navy begins escorting shipments two years later.

  JUNE 2006: The Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a grassroots religious movement, seizes power in Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia. The ICU takes control of Harardheere and Hobyo, and briefly manages to suppress piracy.

  DECEMBER 2006: US-backed Ethiopian forces invade Somalia, overthrowing the ICU and forcing its moderates to flee to Eritrea and Djibouti. Hardline ICU militias split off to form Al-Shabaab, or “The Youth,” and undertake a violent insurgency against the occupying forces.

  OCTOBER 28, 2007: A pirate attack group led by Abdullahi Abshir Boyah hijacks the MV Golden Nori, a Japanese chemical tanker, fifteen kilometres off the Somali coast.

  APRIL 2008: President Hersi ceases to pay his Puntland security forces. Following the end of the summer monsoon season in August, piracy explodes.

  JULY 2008: A rejuvenated SomCan enters into a one-year contract with the administration of President Hersi to resume its coast guard duties. The following year, President Farole declines to extend its contract.

  SEPTEMBER 25, 2008: Eyl- and Harardheere-based pirates jointly capture the MV Faina, a Ukrainian vessel transporting tanks intended for the government of South Sudan. After a four-month standoff, the pirates receive a then-unprecedented ransom of $3.2 million.

  OCTOBER 2008: NATO announces plans for a seven-warship counter-piracy task force in Somali waters. In the following months, the European Union and the United States deploy their own fleets, EU Naval Force Somalia (NAVFOR) and Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151).

  NOVEMBER 15, 2008: Somali pirates associated with Afweyne hijack the MV Sirius Star, a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million in crude oil. The attack occurs almost eight hundred kilometres south of Somalia, the farthest Somali pirates have ventured to date.

  DECEMBER 2008: Kenya signs a memorandum of understanding with the United Kingdom to prosecute suspected pirates captured on the high seas. Similar deals follow with the EU and the United States.

  JANUARY 2009: Ethiopian troops withdraw from Somalia, and Al-Shabaab quickly assumes control over much of the south of the country. The TFG merges with the exiled ICU leadership to form a 550-member parliament. Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, former ICU head, is chosen president of the new body.

  JANUARY 8, 2009: Former Puntland finance minister Abdirahman Farole is elected president of Puntland. A former academic, Farole becomes only the third Somali civilian leader since 1969.

  APRIL 8, 2009: Members of Garaad Mohammed’s pirate organization briefly seize the MV Maersk Alabama, the first US merchant ship to be commandeered in two hundred years. Four attackers flee the ship in the Alabama’s lifeboat, taking Captain Richard Phillips with them. After a tense four-day standoff, US Navy SEALs kill three of the pirates and take the fourth into custody.

  MAY 5, 2009: The MV Victoria, a German-owned container ship, is hijacked by a gang of Eyl-based pirates operating under the instructions of Abdulkhadar “Computer,” a reported psychic. The ship is released after seventy-five days, garnering a ransom of $1.8 million.

  NOVEMBER 6, 2010: Pirates release the South Korean oil tanker Samho Dream for a record-setting ransom of $9.5 million.

  JANUARY 21, 2011: South Korean commandos storm the hijacked chemical tanker MV Samho Jewelry, freeing the crew and killing eight pirates. The rescue marked the first military assault on a commercial vessel whose crew had not barricaded themselves within a “safe room.”

  FEBRUARY 18, 2011: Pirates hijack the yacht S/V Quest four hundred kilometres off the coast of Oman. Surrounded by US warships, the pirates execute their four American hostages.

  Acknowledgements

  A VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO MY HOST AND PARTNER, RADIO Garowe and Garowe Online (www.garoweonline.com) founder Mohamad Abdirahman Farole, his brothers Omar and Mahad, and his cousins, Abdirizak Ahmed and the redoubtable Colonel Omar Abdullahi Farole. I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to my invaluable consultant, Somali-American journalist Yusuf Hassan. Finally, my thanks to my trusty bodyguards, Said and Abdirashid, who got me back alive—twice—and to Boyah, who welcomed me into his world.

  To my parents, Maria and Kailash, unwavering in their support as this project developed from cockeyed suicide mission to unimagined success, and to Laura, for her love, understanding, and flawless application of Marry Me doctrine.

  I am extraordinarily grateful to my unofficial editors, the friends who gave countless hours of their valuable time to help me become a better writer: Lauren Amundsen (who mercilessly beat the flowery metaphor out of me), as well as Kevin Weitzman, Geoff Burt, and Ross Gray.

  I wish to thank all those who helped me along the way, from Toronto to Garowe, London, Nairobi, and beyond: Teddy Florea, Katharine Houreld, Kevin Mwachiro, Jamal Abdi, Rene Dalgaard, Hussein Hersi, Abdiwahid Mahamed Hersi Joaar, Said Orey, Ion Tita-Calin, Stig Jarle Hansen, Ryan Bigge, Avril Benoit, Reva Seth, Shin Imai, Bill Burt, Daniel Sekulich, Thymaya Payne, Mohamed Dahir Hassan, and the Kenyan prison service, especially Wanini Kireri, David Macharia, and Patrick Mwenda.

  I would like to express my sincerest appreciation to Daniel Crewe and Lisa Owens at Profile, Vicky Wilson at Knopf, Noelle Zitzer at HarperCollins, Sarah Wight (my superbly-talented copyeditor), and in particular to my editor Jim Gifford, who saw beyond the CV.

  Finally, my inestimable thanks to my agent, Rick Broadhead, for his tireless patience and hard work as I trod my first steps along a very unfamiliar path.

  To those whom I have neglected to mention: please accept the omission as one of memory, and not of gratitude.

  Notes

  PROLOGUE: WHERE THE WHITE MAN RUNS AWAY

  1. All figures are in US dollars.

  CHAPTER 1: BOYAH

  1. Name has been changed.

  2. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) corroborates part of Boyah’s claim: a 2005 report states that “[illegal] fishing is increasing day by day and destroying coral reefs, fish nursery areas, capturing endangered species and depleting fish stocks rapidly.” Also according to the report, illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing vessels “often take the fishing gear from the local fishermen, and sometimes even kill people in the process.” Illegal fishing ships, it continues, come as close as a kilometre to the coast, causing extensive damage to the local marine ecosystem. Mohamed Mohamud Mohamed and Mahamud Hirad Herzi, Poverty Reduction and Economic Recovery: Feasibility Report on the Fisheries Sector in Puntland (Bossaso: Ocean Training and Promotion/UNDP Somalia, April 2005), http://mirror.undp.org/somalia/publications.htm, 16, xiii, xiv.

  CHAPTER 2: A SHORT HISTORY OF PIRACY

  I am indebted to Stig Jarle Hansen for his excellent work on the history and origins of piracy in Somalia, much of which is reproduced in this chapter.

  1. Aidan Hartley, The Zanzibar Chest (London: Harper Perennial, 2004), 184.

  2. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Garowe: First Steps Towards Strategic Urban Planning (Nairobi: UN-Habitat, 2008), http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss, 4.

  3. Although cousins on the Somali clan tree, the Majerteen, Dhulbahante, and Warsangali have never been the best of friends. Dating back to before the Majerteen sultanates of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Majerteen have traditionally dominated their Harti kinsmen, a pattern that continues to the present day. There were allegations that, before and during the Garowe conference, Abdullahi Yusuf strong-armed Warsangali and Dhulbahante leaders into supporting the creation of Puntland, which was certain to be controlled primarily by the Majerteen. In any case, the Dhulbahante- and Warsangali-inhabited regions of Puntland have never been much more than nominally under the control of the region’s central government; in 2005, Warsangali leaders in Sanaag region established their own short-lived breakaway mini-state, Makhir, and in 2007 many Dhulbahante clan leaders switched th
eir allegiance to Somaliland, resulting in the secession of the town of Las Anod.

  4. Quoted in Jeffrey Gettleman, “For Somali Pirates, Worst Enemy May Be on Shore,” New York Times, May 8, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com.

  5. Stig Jarle Hansen, Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden: Myths, Misconceptions and Remedies, NIBR Report 2009:29 (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, 2009), http://en.nibr.no, 20.

  6. Ibid., 20.

  7. Ibid., 22.

  8. Anonymous interviewee quoted ibid., 23–24.

  9. Quoted ibid., 24.

  10. UN Monitoring Group on Somalia, Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia pursuant to Security Council resolution 1630 (2005), S/2006/229, May 4, 2006, http://www.un.org/sc/committees/751/mongroup.shtml, 27.

  11. Kismaayo, though far south of Puntland, contains a substantial population of Isse Mahamoud, which is Garaad’s clan.

  12. “Hijackers of Food-Laden Ship Make New Demands,” IRIN, August 15, 2005, http://www.irinnews.org.

  13. The Faina was originally hijacked by Afweyne’s militias, who brought it to Harardheere. But when the ransom negotiations dragged on for months and operating expenses continued to mount, the gang was forced to turn to the Eyl pirate group to share the costs.

  14. Hansen, Piracy, 23.

  15. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Annual Report 2005 Activities and Use of Extrabudgetary Funds (New York, 2005), http://ochaonline.un.org, 170.

  16. In Eyl, 40 boats were destroyed and 70 damaged, out of a total of 145. Hermann M. Fritz and Jose C. Borrero, “Field Survey after the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami,” Earthquake Spectra 22, no. S3 (June 2006): S219; United Nations Development Programme, Tsunami Inter-Agency Assessment Mission: Hafun to Gara’ad, Northeast Somali Coastline, 28 Jan–8 Feb 2005, March 30, 2005, http://www.undp.org/cpr/disred/tsunami/news/march05.htm, 4.

  17. Interestingly, however, poverty levels within Somalia do not appear to be directly correlated to the prevalence of piracy. Hansen, Piracy, 15.

  18. “Exchange Rate Drops in Puntland Markets,” Garowe Online, March 7, 2009, http://www.garoweonline.com.

  19. Ibid.

  20. The salary of a Darawish soldier remained fixed at one million shillings per month.

  21. Hansen, Piracy, 33.

  22. International Crisis Group, Somalia: The Trouble with Puntland, Africa Briefing no. 64 (Nairobi/Brussels: August 12, 2009), http://www.crisisgroup.org, 3.

  23. Hansen, Piracy, 33.

  CHAPTER 3: PIRATE LORE

  1. I have used International Maritime Bureau statistics here (rather than ECOTERRA’s, which I employ elsewhere in the book), since the IMB figures more accurately represent the number of commercial ships hijacked while transiting through the Gulf of Aden. IMB Piracy Reporting Centre, http://www.icc-ccs.org/home/piracy-reporting-centre.

  2. “Somali Adulterer Stoned to Death,” BBC News, November 6, 2009, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news.

  3. Quoted in Martin Plaut, “Pirates ‘Working with Islamists,’ ” BBC News, November 19, 2008, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news.

  4. Jeffrey Gettleman, “In Somali Civil War, Both Sides Embrace Pirates,” New York Times, September 1, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Quoted in Martin Abbugao, “Somali Pirates Controlled by Syndicates: Interpol,” Agence France-Presse, October 14, 2009.

  7. Mike Pflanz, “Somali Pirates ‘Helped by Intelligence Gathered in London,’ ” Telegraph (London), May 11, 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk.

  8. See, for example, Tom Odula, “Pirate Ransom Money May Explain Kenya Property Boom,” Huffington Post, January 1, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com.

  CHAPTER 4: OF PIRATES, COAST GUARDS, AND FISHERMEN

  1. UN Monitoring Group on Somalia, Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia submitted in accordance with resolution 1853 (2008), S/2010/91, March 10, 2010, http://www.un.org/sc/committees/751/mongroup.shtml, 40.

  2. Ombaali’s math does not add up. If, as he claims, $1.8 million and $1.6 million were paid to release the two vessels, a 20 per cent share of both ransoms, divided equally amongst the thirty-five holders, would have earned Ombaali just over $19,000 (this, as we will see in Chapter 14, is much more in line with a pirate foot soldier’s average wage).

  3. Stig Jarle Hansen, Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden: Myths, Misconceptions and Remedies, NIBR Report 2009:29 (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, 2009), http://en.nibr.no, 35.

  4. Marine experts have estimated that Somalia could support sustainable marine production of between 300,000 and 500,000 tonnes per year; yet prior to the civil war, official output stood at 20,000 tonnes, a mere 4 per cent of this potential (Andrew Mwangura, “Militia vs. Trawlers: Who Is the Villain?” East Africa Magazine, July 9, 2001). In Puntland, development of the fisheries sectors—as with all industries—has lagged even behind the south of the country. Local fishermen have no access to export markets other than through the Somali middlemen who peddle their rock lobsters to fish importers in the Gulf states; there is also a single industrial-scale tuna canning plant, located in the northern coastal town of Las Qoray. Road and refrigeration infrastructures are so bad that the coastal communities cannot find customers in their domestic market—little fish from Eyl is transported even as far as Garowe, two hundred kilometres distant.

  5. Quoted in International Crisis Group, Somalia: The Trouble with Puntland, Africa Briefing no. 64, Nairobi/Brussels: August 12, 2009, http://www.crisisgroup.org, 11.

  6. Quoted in Jonathon Gatehouse, “This Cabbie Hunts Pirates,” Macleans, January 12, 2009.

  7. Stig Jarle Hansen, “Private Security and Local Politics in Somalia,” Review of African Political Economy 118 (2008): 588.

  8. Choong also claimed that Sirichai falsely labels its tuna products “Product of Thailand” and markets them in Kenya. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis, “The MV Faina Piracy Crisis Chronicle-VII,” http://www.california-chronicle.com, December 7, 2008.

  9. A patrol run from SomCan’s base in Bossaso to Garacad, spanning almost the entire Puntland coast, requires approximately sixty drums of diesel, or twelve thousand litres. At $150 per drum, the fuel for a one-way trip costs $9,000.

  10. A short time after this violent encounter, the SomCan ship responded to an American naval communiqué requesting the Puntland government’s help in transporting a shipload of stranded Somali fishermen to shore. SomCan found the marooned sailors adrift in an inoperative speedboat off the coastal town of Bargaal. The fishermen had been forced, at gunpoint, to exchange vessels with a gang of pirates who were experiencing technical problems with their attack craft’s engine. The fishermen had been adrift for two days in the pirates’ discarded boat before being spotted by a US warship. For all the pirates’ talk about their solemn duty to cleanse Somali waters of illegal fishing ships, their own countrymen were apparently not immune to being targeted when the greater good demanded it.

  11. Roger Middleton, Piracy in Somalia: Threatening Global Trade, Feeding Local Wars (London: Chatham House, October 2008), http://www.chathamhouse.org. uk, 7.

  12. Katharine Houreld, “Blackwater Founder Trains Somalis,” Associated Press, January 20, 2011; “Puntland Signed an Agreement with Saracen Company to train its Marine Forces,” Garowe Online, November 18, 2010, http://www.garoweonline.com.

  13. Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, “Blackwater Founder Said to Back Mercenaries,” New York Times, January 20, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com.

  14. Katharine Houreld, “1,000-Man Militia Being Trained in North Somalia,” Associated Press, December 1, 2010.

  CHAPTER 5: GARAAD

  1. Richard Phillips, A Captain’s Duty (New York: Hyperion, 2010), 247–48. Phillips, apparently, did not consider it within the ambit of a captain’s duty to heed maritime safety bulletins concerning pirate activity. Following the Alabama incident, several of his crewmates, including the ship’s navigator and chief engineer, publicly attacked Phillips
for his negligence in ignoring warnings to stay at least 950 kilometres from the Somali coast. A map of the attack location shows that Phillips had put the Alabama at unacceptable risk; she was only about 550 kilometres east of Harardheere when she was hijacked—right at the pirates’ doorstep. See John Curran, “Crew Blames Capt. for Pirate Attack,” Associated Press, December 2, 2009.

  2. “French Warship Detains Pirates, US Call for Action,” Agence France-Presse, April 15, 2009.

  CHAPTER 6: FLOWER OF PARADISE

  1. Despite its historical use in Koranic study, khat was declared un-Islamic and banned after the Islamic Courts Union assumed control over southern Somalis in 2006, provoking widespread street protests.

  2. David Anderson, Susan Beckerleg, Dagol Hailu, and Axel Klein, The Khat Controversy: Stimulating the Debate on Drugs (Oxford: Berg, 2007), 1.

  3. Anderson et al., Khat Controversy, 61.

  4. This may be an optimistic assessment; during my trip to Bossaso in President Farole’s entourage, we stopped for a night in the city of Qardho, where the president’s good offices were sought to mediate a dispute over two young men who had been killed by Puntland police while attempting to rob a khat truck. The boys’ clan elders were demanding that the police officers be executed in retribution for their actions.

  5. For an interesting discussion of khat use amongst Somali militants, see Michael Odenwald, Harald Hinkel, Elisabeth Schauer, Frank Neuner, Maggie Schauer, Thomas R. Elbert, and Brigitte Rockstroh, “The Consumption of Khat and Other Drugs in Somali Combatants: A Cross-Sectional Study,” PLoS Medicine 4, no. 12 (2007), http://www.plosmedicine.org.

  6. United Nations World Food Programme, Puntland: Food Security and Vulnerability Assessment (Nairobi: WFP Somalia, April 2007), http://documents.wfp.org; Danish Refugee Council, CDRD M&E Specialist Field Trip to Puntland, 2009, http://www.somcdrd.org.