Somali government troops are ready to launch a major offensive against insurgents and expect to drive them out of the capital by the end of this month, the country's prime minister told Reuters on Sunday.
Talk of an imminent government attack on the rebels has been rife in recent weeks and al Shabaab, the main insurgent group, is reported to have stepped up the forced recruitment of youths into its ranks in readiness for the assault.
"Our troops are prepared to act, and flush these terrorists out of the capital before the end of January, and continue taking over the control of more territories from these fighters," said Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke.
...
Sharmarke said the government's preparations centred on recruiting and training the troops and reforming the command structure.
"We could not go to war overnight, but we put most of our efforts into preparing our forces to act, so that the work can yield some results at the end of the day," he said.
Mareeg Online: Government imports tanks
Somalia’s government has imported weapons including tanks in Mogadishu, sources said on Tuesday.
Workers in Mogadishu seaport say a ship loaded with weapons including tanks has docked in the port and the shipments were being unloaded.
The Ship anchored in Mogadishu on Monday and the Islamist militant fired mortars to the side of the port.
Civilians were killed and injured in the mortars fired by the Islamist militants in the capital.
Officials of the Somali government said they were planning to start a war against the Islamist rebels to clear them out of the capital.
It is not known which government gave the weapons to the government, but the US government pledged military aid to the Somalia before.
Garowe Online: Civilians killed in Mogadishu violence
At least eleven people, including three youngsters have been killed and over 14 others injured in heavy shelling and explosion that rocked parts of Somalia ’s restive capital Mogadishu .
Witnesses said violence started on Monday evening where government forces backed by African Union troops shelled Hodan neighbourhood and Bakara market, an insurgent stronghold, claiming the lives of four civilians.
“Four casual workers were killed when a mortar shell landed in one of stalls,” said an eyewitness.
Several mortar shells fired by warring forces also landed at residential areas and the main Mogadishu seaport. At least four civilians are reportedly killed and few others injured.
Shabelle Media claimed that
The shelling which caused the casualties of deaths and injuries comes as there was no fighting between the government soldiers that backed by AMISIOM and the Islamist fighters in Mogadishu.
It's not clear if the shelling of the market was in response to an attack on the seaport.
Is Defense Minister Indha Adde running interference for the Mogadishu shipment w/ his public charges of weapons arriving from Yemen in the port at Kismayo?
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As expected, Time clocks in w/ a sensationalist slice of propaganda that (1) conveniently omits the official denial from Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahideen's spokesperson which was covered in most other major western media stories at the time of the incident, (2) relies on selective stenography rather than respectable reporting, and (3) relies on the heavy tactical use of weasel phrases (emphases added).
The Danish-Cartoonist Attack: Sign of a Wider Plot?
..while the bombing attempt on the Detroit plane was believed to be the work of one misguided youth who may or may not have had links to al-Qaeda, analysts fear that the alleged attack on the Danish cartoonist may signal a wider plot by radical Islamists in Somalia to take their fight abroad.
The al-Shabab militia in Somalia, which is suspected to have ties to al-Qaeda, would not say whether it was involved in the plot to kill the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard. But Sheik Muktar Robow, a spokesman for the group, did say that Gelle, who was shot by Danish police during his arrest, was a "hero to all Muslims." "We are very sad that the mission failed," Robow tells TIME. "Everyone describes him as a brave man, and as a group, al-Shabab prays for him to recover quickly from his injuries."
Even though al-Shabab has not claimed responsibility for the attack, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service has said Gelle had "close relations to the Somali terror organization al-Shabab and leaders of al-Qaeda in East Africa." Al-Shabab has also made repeated, impassioned proclamations that it wants to carry its fight to the rest of eastern Africa and beyond, possibly to the West. And while its resources are not believed to be extensive, it has shown recent signs of increasing sophistication, like using suicide bombs and improvised explosive devices.
"It's quite clear that al-Shabab has international ambitions," says E.J. Hogendoorn, a Nairobi-based Horn of Africa analyst for the International Crisis Group. "It has an international agenda in that it sees itself in part as relating to the larger Muslim population. So when they can get away with a high-profile attack that they think will generate support, I think they will do so. The question is whether they have the capacity to do so."
If this is indeed the case, then the attack on the Danish cartoonist, which may or may not have been part of the group's plans, raises the question of whether the Kenyan police have the capacity to stop potential Somali attackers from entering their country and possibly continuing on to other nations.
Reuters rings in with their own story -- What is the global reach of Somalia's rebels? -- that fails to really say much at all since the hypotheticals are much more enticing than facts on the ground:
..al Shabaab's external reach has been highlighted after Friday's attack on cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in Copenhagen -- as well as its pledge to support Yemeni insurgents linked to al Qaeda who are believed to be behind the foiled Christmas Day bombing of a commercial airliner over Detroit.
WHAT IS AL SHABAAB'S RECORD?
The rebels have threatened in the past to launch attacks in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, as well in Uganda and Burundi, which both sent troops for the AU's peacekeeping mission AMISOM.
But they have so far failed to follow through. Experts believe some al Shabaab financiers have large amounts of funds in real estate in Kenya's capital Nairobi -- meaning they would not want to see any attacks that put their investment at risk. Some analysts suggest the absence of any strikes in Kampala or Bujumbura suggests much of the rebels' rhetoric maybe just that.
That has not stopped concerns being stoked further afield, however.
Even the Congressional Research Service inconclusively touched on the exaggerated connections between H.S.M. and piracy in the Indian Ocean in the January 05 report [pdf] International Terrorism and Transnational Crime: Security Threats, U.S. Policy, and Considerations for Congress as a case study entitled "Ambiguous or Unclear Involvement Between Terrorist and Criminal Groups: Al-Shabaab".
While they leave out the role of the Islamists in curbing piracy in 2006, at least the researchers do include the Navy's perspective:
U.S. Navy officials, however, assess that there is no evidence to suggest that Al-Shabaab militants have financial or operational ties to pirates. Vice Admiral William Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, told the House Armed Services Committee on March 5, 2009, that “We look very, very carefully for a linkage between piracy and terrorism or any kind of ideology and we do not see it. It would be a significant game changer should that linkage occur. But we have not seen it.”
Surprisingly, VOA gives voice to some relatively-informed reason coming from Prof. Samatar,
U.S. Extends Reevaluation of Security Threats to Yemen and Somalia
Somali-born geography professor Abdi Samatar of the University of Minnesota says that the intensification of fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt by Nigerian-born Umar Abdulmutallab have helped shift the focus of conflict to al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula, particularly to Yemen. But he notes that reports of recent arms shipments from Yemeni rebels to Somalia’s Islamist al-Shabab fighters have so far had little impact on the rebel insurgency against Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
“I don’t think that the amount of weapons that are going from Yemen through al-Qaida to al-Shabab is significant. Shabab has many other sources of weapons, both in the domestic market, and, remember, Somalia has one of the largest small weapons markets in Mogadishu itself,” he said.
Despite al-Shabab claims of sending fighters to help al-Qaida resist Yemeni and foreign-assisted efforts to quash its insurgency, Professor Samatar says a Somali presence in Yemen is limited to longtime refugees who have lived in northern Yemen for decades, but not a significant infusion of terrorists or resistance fighters.
...
As for Yemenis operating in Somalia, Samatar says the security threat is also low.
...
The answer to U.S. and British efforts to bring greater stability to both Somalia and Yemen can be found in new initiatives to democratize both countries rather than focusing on the anti-terror threat, according to Professor Samatar. He warns that stepped up foreign military involvement can foment resentment among local populations in both countries, which have long been discontent with the authoritarian qualities of their own failed states’ leaderships.
“I think the Somali people would welcome a very genuine support from the United (States) government to help themselves rebuild their country. I think the project that the United States helped take part in in Djibouti, which ultimately produced the Transitional Federal Government was both illegitimate and incompetent. And so what the Somali people are looking for is support from Britain and the United States people and governments that are genuinely democratic, that will support civil society, and Islamic movement that is also democratic,” he maintains.
Samatar asserts that Yemeni and Somali resentment are stirred up against western interference when it is being engineered to serve outside interests.
“Genuine democratization of the political process in Somalia, pushing the Transitional Federal Government into becoming more inclusive, more accountable, more effective, and bringing on board people with capacity who are Somalis who can deliver for the local population, if the U.S. and Britain push things in that direction, the Somali people will genuinely welcome that, in my opinion,” he noted.
Several fundamental issues in Samatar's suggestions though that need reconciling...
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Puntland Post: Somalia scholar urges government to stop issuing empty threats on Al-Shabab
Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar who is among Somali scholars in the diaspora has censured both the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia [TFG] and the movement for the Al-Shabab Mujahidin. The scholar while speaking to Radio stations in Mogadishu said threats being made by Al-Shabab have made the lives of Somalis abroad extremely difficult.
"Al-Shabab's decision to deploy some of their fighters in Yemen has made travelling of Somalis abroad extremely difficult given that there were enough restrictions already. I would like to request them to stop issuing such threats," said Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar.
Professor Samatar said Al-Shabab has in the past made unrealistic threats such as travelling to the United States and other parts of the world. Professor Samatar also said the TFG is unable to do much about the situation in Somalia and that now is high time to either make true of their threats in attacking the opposition or leave office.
"The threats being made by the government are also unrealistic and can impede the attainment of peace in the country. I would like to also urge them not to subject the civilian population to more problems after the last 20 years," said Professor Samatar.
The professor also warned western nations against interfering in Somalia without consulting their politicians and scholars saying that if they did so, they may create a situation similar to the conflict in Iraq.
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SMC: Troops conduct landmine excavation operations in the city
A battalion of the Somali national armed forces, who are qualified in detecting and excavating of explosive devices which are buried under the ground, has on Thursday morning conducted landmine excavation operation in Some districts in the Somali capital Mogadishu such as Hamar Jajab, Hodan, Hamarweyne and Waberi.
It was merely yesterday when an infantry unit of the Somali armed force has also conducted an operation which is unlike this one of today that of yesterday was to track down gangsters who perturb the residents of these districts.
“In the daybreak of Thursday when we woke up we saw that there were government troops, who have occupied almost in all the streets of Hamar jajab, and almost all of these troops had detecting equipments in their hands and they were slowly placing them on the ground, and sometimes these objects were giving a serine sound, and when this sound is heard the experts were rounding up the very place which has given out the unordinary sound, while some of the troops were keeping vigilant guard” said zakaria Noor an eyewitness who spoke to Somaliweyn Website on Thursday morning.
The latest report from the operations verifies that the troops have excavated several explosive devices.
Mareeg Online adds
Residents say the government soldiers were checking mines in the streets of the two districts where it is suspected that the militants planted roadside bombs.
The government soldiers have also conducted search operations in these two districts on Wednesday and arrested more teenagers who were accused of working with the Islamist rebels.
“We could not go out of our homes, because some government soldiers refused us to go out,” said Jamal, a resident in Afisyoni neighbourhood in Mogadishu.
Shabelle Media: TFG’s military commander survives a roadside bomb attack in Mogadishu
Mohamed Gelle kahiye, the Transitional Federal Government’s military commander has been survived a roadside bomb attack targeted to his vehicle at around Banadir intersection in the Somali capital Mogadishu, killing a soldier, wounding 3 others, officials said on Thursday.
Col. Abdullahi Hassan Barise, the spokesman of the transitional Federal government police forces has held press conference in Mogadishu after the explosion and said that explosion was a landmine that was directly targeted to a vehicle that was onboard the military commander of the transitional government.
The spokesman said that a soldier was killed and others injured as the explosion happened adding that the blast was masterminded by the rival sides of the transitional government in Mogadishu.
On the other hand officials of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen had claimed the responsibility of the landmine explosion targeted to the highest chief of the transitional governments’ military forces saying that they had inflicted more casualties to a convoy of the government’s troops as they were traveling around Sey-Biano building which is very close to Banadir intersection in south of the capital.
Mohamed Gelle kahiye, was one of the officials of the transitional government and he was appointed as the military commander of the Transitional Federal Government.
AFP adds
A witness, Abdi Elmi, said several people were injured in the blast, adding that "the government forces opened fire in all directions after the explosion."
AP adds
The Islamists may have targeted Kahiye because of his role in preparing the army for an upcoming battle aimed at retaking the capital. Kahiye took on the post last month.
Islamists are known to target officials whenever they sense the government is preparing for an attack.
Interesting that during two days of orchestrated mine sweeps in those districts that the transitional govt forces' vehicle carrying the commander just happens to hit a landmine. Coincidence, in that there was a separate and deliberate targeting of that vehicle, or was the blast a product of the govt operations?
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A somewhat propagandist article in the Toronto Star on January 04 maybe fills in some details on Abu Mansour/Omar Hammami's backstory, though it's short on facts and full of sensationalism. Some earlier commentary/analysis on al-Amriki was posted here in the September 06 thread and sprinkled elsewhere throughout the archives.
Fanatic convert to terrorism spent year in Toronto
One of the most visible leaders of an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist militia in Somalia spent a year in Toronto ingratiating himself into the Somali immigrant community as a convert to Islam.
Omar Hammami – known to followers as Abu Mansour "Al-Amriki" (the American) – ate at Somali restaurants and prayed in Somali mosques. He married a Toronto woman of Somali origin and had a daughter with her.
Then, after learning Somali ways, he left to join the Horn of Africa's top terror group, Al-Shabab, to wage Islamic jihad and recruit other foreign nationals to the cause, say former friends and relatives speaking publicly of the terrorist's Toronto connections for the first time.
Note the use of the plural in the phrase "friends and relatives speaking publicly." However, the only two sources in Toronto used in the article are a friend -- "a Somalia-born Torontonian who asks to be identified only as Abdi, because he says he fears Al-Shabab" -- and the ex-father-in-law.
The article supplies a rough bio & chronology of Hammami's life before showing up in the al-Jazeera report.
Omar Hammami is 25 years old. He grew up in Daphne, Ala., just outside Mobile.
His mother is Baptist by religion. His father is Shafik Hammami, a Syrian-born engineer with the Alabama transportation department and president of the Islamic Society of Mobile. Reached by phone last week, he refused comment.
Although Hammami grew up Baptist, he converted to Islam in the late 1990s while attending Daphne High School.
...
In September 2001, Hammami had just started computer science studies at the University of South Alabama – and been elected head of the Muslim Student Association – when Al Qaeda launched its suicide attacks on the United States.
"It's difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this," he told the campus newspaper at the time.
At the end of 2002, he dropped out of school.
How he spent the next two years is not known but in the fall of 2004 he arrived in Toronto from Ohio, says one of his best friends from the period.
"He was interested in finding a large Muslim community," says the friend, a Somalia-born Torontonian who asks to be identified only as Abdi, because he says he fears Al-Shabab.
Of any Toronto immigrant community, the city's 80,000 Somalis are the most visibly Muslim, he says, especially the women who copiously cover themselves.
Together, Abdi and Hammami took jobs briefly at a dairy distribution company. Afterward they moved to 1 Pizza & Fish & Chips, on Weston Rd. north of Lawrence Ave. W.
"I became very close to him," Abdi says. "We talked a lot about religion. I knew a lot of his beliefs and ideology."
Hammami considered himself a Salafi Muslim, seeking to practise Islam as people did in the seventh and eighth centuries. But he was not extremist, Abdi says.
"The man I knew did not believe in suicide bombings," he says. "He did not believe in carrying weapons and fighting among the Muslims. He did not believe in calling people disbelievers just because they had a dispute with you."
On the other hand, Hammami was "easily irritated," the former friend recalls.
"There was one incident at the pizza place when a Somali singer placed a (concert) poster in the window," he says. "In a split second, (Hammami) removed it.
"To me, that is immaturity, not extremism," Abdi says. "Rather, he should ask permission to the owner saying, `You know, brother, (music and partying) is not according to tradition.'"
At some point early on, at an Islamic conference, Hammami met Sadiyo Mohamed Abdille. He was 20, she was 18.
"His face, it was a bit fanatic," recalls Mohamed Salad, the girl's father, of the day Hammami asked permission to marry her.
Salad despises fanatics. In Somalia, he rose to become an army colonel under military dictator Siad Barre. He was training in San Antonio, Texas, when Barre was ousted in 1991 and with no reason to return home Salad came to Toronto.
"If we had been in Somalia, I would have refused (permission to marry)," says Salad, now a coffee house owner on Lawrence Ave. W. "But I thought, `This is Canada. I am Canadian. Daughters decide what they like.'"
Now that's an interesting, if not ironic, connection - a father-in-law who was a Texas-trained colonel in Siad Barre's U.S.-backed dictatorship.
In June 2005, the couple left for Cairo. Hammami told people he wanted to study Islam at Al-Azar University.
That summer the baby was born. In September, Hammami told his wife they were going to Somalia but she balked. She phoned her father, who helped her and the baby return to Toronto.
Speaking for the woman, Scarborough lawyer Faisal Kutty would say only that his client legally separated from Hammami in June 2007, has had no contact with him for more than two years and "has fully co-operated with Canadian intelligence officials on this."
...
Hammami arrived in Mogadishu in late 2005, only to be arrested as a spy by leaders of the Islamic Courts Union, says Abdi, who has been tracking his former friend through personal networks.
But Hammami's credentials checked out. The Union, on its way to controlling much of the south in 2006, assigned him to its youth wing – Al-Shabab. Its leader, Aden Hashi Ayrow, sent him to Raas Kamboni training camp at the Kenyan border.
"He began to rise in the ranks," Abdi says.
Before continuing, let's throw in this bit from Hammami's father in a September 23 interview on the Mobile-Pensacola NBC affiliate WKRG
Shafik says it has been 3 years since he and his wife heard from Omar. "I decided to come out today is not to defend him or defend his actions because I do not agree with his actions. I do not agree with his philosophy... But I do want to make it clear to everyone whose listening to us today that the Islamic society of Mobile is part of the community. We are a part of the social fabric of Mobile. We've been here for decades."
Shafik Hammami says he last spoke with Omar in December of 2006 when Omar called him from Somalia, saying someone had stolen his passport.
Omar's wife is from Somalia and they had gone there for a short visit.
Shafik says his [son] pleaded with him for help in getting him out. "I contacted the FBI, I contacted the State Department, I contacted my Congressman Bonner, went to his office filled out a report, requested they expedite some temporary paper work so they could get him out of the country because he has no paperwork. So to my dismay, I learned that nothing the U.S. could do because we had no diplomatic relations with that country."
Shafik says he feels it was then and there that his son was indoctrinated by the militants in Somalia who may have offered him shelter during the fighting and unrest.
The Toronto Star article claims Hammami arrived, by himself, in Mogadishu near the end of 2005. Hammami's father says his son had traveled to Somalia with his wife at the end of 2006, around the time of the Ethiopian/U.S. invasion, "for a short visit."
The Toronto Star article claims Hammami was immediately "arrested as a spy" by the ICU and then, after his "credentials checked out", sent to Raas Kamboni and began training as a mujahideen one year before the invasion. His father claims that Hammami called him around the time of the invasion saying that his passport had been stolen, "pleading" for his father's help to get out w/o his documents.
What's really interesting about the father's story is that his efforts through several U.S. agencies to get a U.S. citizen out of that hotspot were met w/ the contention that w/o diplomatic relations w/ Somalia, there was nothing that could be done. Never mind the heavy U.S. involvement in the area at the time, what w/ the intel gathering operations, the renditions & interrogations, and the military operations.
And one wonders what "credentials checked out" to assauge Hammami's captors of the notion that he was attempting to infiltrate their organization? Was it related to his time in Cairo? Or, before that, the unaccounted for period in 2003-2004 which led him to Toronto to assimilate into a large Muslim community, marry into a Somali family, and learn Somali ways?
And then, as raised previously, how does he suddenly show up in 2007 as a weapons expert at one of Hassan Turki's training camps and, then, less than two years later, get listed as Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan’s deputy in the Al-Muhajirun chain of command?
The Star article doesn't provide much to help us answer those questions and the details provided aren't necessarily all that reliable, given that the article is largely based on a friend's secondhand information regarding Hammami's timeline.
From near the end of the Toronto Star article, there's more hearsay,
Abdi says he heard in October that Hammami had been fighting near the Ethiopian border, and is recovering in hospital from bullet wounds and mental problems.
No mention is given to reports, such as this one, that Hammami was taken by U.S. Special Forces in the raid on Nabhan's convoy, which lends credence to the speculation that al-Amriki was a key source of the very precise intelligence in the execution of that operation targeting his reported boss.
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From a January 07 editorial at Wardheer News:
Alternative Approaches to Pacifying Mogadishu
With the help of well-wishing, but impatiently hasty world community, only one model - a top down approach - to re-establish the Somali state has been repeatedly tried. However, that model keeps failing. To say the least, enormous political capital and human life have been spent on faulty solutions to Somalia's intractable problems, all of which have been centred on the question of Mogadishu.
...
After all is said and done, the only two things that had consistently flourished in Southern Somalia (Mogadishu area) in the last 20 years are a culture of violence and an uneducated and corrupt leadership who seek phantom power at the expense of their devastated community.
Meanwhile, the two regional governments of Puntland in the northeast and Somaliland in the northwest have been registering gainful cultures of peace and functioning administrations, notwithstanding challenges in capacity building. It is this contrast between the culture of violence in Mogadishu versus the evolving peaceful civic cultural life in Puntland and Somaliland that forces us to question the model so far utilized.
We loudly wonder how Mogadishu would bring peace to any other region in Somalia when it is not at peace with itself! Would it be asking too much to suggest that Puntland and Somaliland are rather in a better position to bring peace to Mogadihu?
...
With similar internal debate raging among the Somali community, WardheerNews spoke to Said Samatar, an expert on Somalia, whose forthcoming book is addressing this very debate. Mr. Samatar is of the opinion that in order to foster comprehensive peace in Somalia, it is imperative that Mogadishu be treated as nothing more than a mere region in the tribal web of Somalia, thus forcing Mogadishu to first seek solutions for its own problems from within.
After all, that is what other regions, particularly Puntland and Somaliland, first did to secure their own peace and governance. They successfully utilized their own devises to foster local peace before moving into helping others. With the hope that Mogadishu would change course and follow suit, we urge belligerent groups in Southern Somalia to tackle their problems on regional basis, thereby trying to first secure the peace and order for Mogadishu from bottom up.
To attain a peaceful southern Somalia, the following steps must be taken:That International community desist from further attempts to establish a Mogadishu-centred centralized national government for all Somalia's regions. This model - a top down approach - has repeatedly failed despite massive political investment by the United Nations Organization and the African Union.
Like Puntland and Somaliland, Mogadishu and the rest of Southern Somalia commence a grass roots based peace-building through their traditional elders and moderate religious leaders.
All non-Southern political operatives in the Mogadishu-based Unity Transitional Federal Government of Sheikh Sheriff Ahmed vacate their positions and begin in an orderly manner to return to their home regions or any other peaceful region of their choice in the country.
Both Puntland and Somaliland administrations should begin to give moral and material support to the afore-mentioned grass roots based peace and reconciliation efforts between groups/clans in Mogadishu.
After proven and tested peace culture is established in Mogadishu and full pacification is achieved among the competing interests in Southern Somalia, the administrations of Puntland and Somaliland shall open up talks with a united Mogadishu-based administration on ways to establish a united federal structure for all Somalia. Somalia’s frontline states must in the interim respect Somalia’s territorial integrity and assist these entities in developing integrated economies and capacities to ward-off threats emanating from Al-Shabab terrorist group.
We believe this approach is consistent with the original comprehensive reconciliation and peace building enunciated by the United Nation in its so-called "building blocks," where Somalia was divided into five peace building blocks, whose final product was to be culminated in an all inclusive federal structure. By employing this original vision, the world would (1) extend due appreciation to the positive deeds so far done in Puntland and Somaliland; (2) give a tangible role to the true stakeholders in the question of Mogadishu without undue interference by other politicians who do not belong to this region and its intricate conflict; and (3) begin to treat Mogadishu as a region equal to other comparable regions by requiring of it to first solve its own conflict with its own means.
After twenty years of employing futile and faulty models with grandiose goals, there is a lot to gain by going back to the basics, articulate a vision that endorses that wise motto of "small is beautiful," and take baby steps to get to the big goal of pacifying Mogadishu. In the interest of Somalia, a grass roots based approach to pacifying violent Mogadishu is one alternative that deserves due consideration.
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Excerpts from the IOL interview A Somali Pirate in Action Talks to IOL: Unraveling the Piracy Career Story
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IslamOnline.net interviewed a Somali pirate, nicknamed Saaid, based in Gar'ad coast village in Puntland through Abdulkarim Mohamed Jimale, freelance journalist. The pirate refused to be pictured out of security concerns.
IOL: How did you become a pirate?
Saaid: I was a fisherman in Gar'ad, a coastal village in Somalia’s Mudug region, before I turned into a coast guard. We decided to counter illegal fishing along our coastlines ourselves, and to protect our resources from foreign looters who destroyed our fishing equipment.
Illegal foreign fishing vessels have taken all the fish, big and small. Nothing was left for us. They even fished about 2 to 3 miles near our coastlines. At that time, we only had AK-47, assault rifles, and other small weapons but we had more skiffs. We used to attack one foreign fishing ships by 200 skiffs, while each skiff carries onboard 3 pirates armed with AK-47. No one was supporting us financially at that time.
Also, we have seen foreign ships dumping toxic waste nearby our shore, resulting in the death of fish and affecting the health of many coastal villagers. Therefore, we decided to capture the vessels before they dump toxic waste in our sea.
IOL: What is the estimated number of fishing boats that have been destroyed by the foreign looters as you claim?
Saaid: Somalia is a big country and I don’t have the actual figures. But I can tell you my personal encounter with these destroyers. One night, we ventured into the sea with 61 fishing boats, each carrying three or four people. Some of us were asleep when a big ship passed in between our convoy.
It was disaster, it roughed up the waters and left some of us drown; of all the 61 boats, only nine survived the tragedy. So you can guess what our colleagues across the country are facing.
...
IOL: And how is [ransom] divided?
Saaid: The gentle pirates who captured the vessel take 50%, and the groups which provided financial support take 40%, and the rest 10% is for the guards who stay with the hijacked ship at the coast and the people who work with us until we get the ransom.
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IOL: From where do you get your weapons?
Saaid: Somalia has weapons from all the world. We get weapons from inside and from outside the country; mostly we buy from our neighboring countries illegally.
IOL: Any country in particular?
Saaid: Yemeni illegal arm dealers supply us.
...
IOL: Do pirates have a network of intelligence in ports around Somalia such as in Yemen or Kenya?
Saaid: No, we don't have any link with the ports around Somalia. We reach only the border near Kenya and back to our positions in Somalia.
But, we reach secretly to the coasts of Yemen to buy high-speed boats and arms illegally.
IOL: Do you think piracy will end here one day? And when?
Saaid: Piracy will end when the government of Somalia restores law and order; when the world really wants to protect the Somali waters and stops dumping toxic waste and leave the coast of Somalia.
I mean you can't pretend to correct things on the land while you destroy the sea. Multinational warships must leave the Somali waters. Otherwise, piracy will remain forever.
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