Pirate Stronghold in Small Town in Somalia

You get a
sense of why the pirates chose the tiny coastal village of Eyl as their base
the moment you start your trip. There are no roads there – just a long dusty
dirt track across more than a hundred miles of desert. It is a hot, rugged, and
dangerous drive. We travelled protected by two truckloads of guards riding in
the legendary Somali ‘technicals’: pick-ups mounted with .50 caliber marchine
guns. We left Bossaso at 3 a.m., so we’d hit the dirt tracked at sunrise. There
are no road signs – and about a dozen different tracks to choose from. On our
first attempt, even our driver who’s from Eyl couldn’t find his way. So we
turned around and tried again the next morning. We were on the right road this
time but stopped dead in our tracks less than halfway through. Bouncing up and
down on the rocky dirt track, our SUV cracked it’s a rear shock absorber. If
you need a shock absorber anywhere, it’s here. With our Toyota Landcruiser
balanced on two stones in the middle of the desert, our driver removed it, vowing
to drive the SUV – and us –  the rest of
the way without it.

Just after
noon, we pulled up to a cliff overlooking Eyl to find that a local official had
driven out to meet us. He carried a warning: Puntland intelligence had received
a trip that four Al Shabaab fighters were in the city attempting to plant
bombs. We weren’t expecting this. We’d come here to see if the government’s
attempt to rein in the pirates was working. Al Shabaab had carried out attacks
elsewhere in Puntland, including Bossaso, but not a remote town like this. Intelligence
officials suspected we were the targets. The mayor had planned to greet us with
a big lunch attended by several village elders. The word was out, an American
television crew was on the way. We’d come a long way – and planned this trip
for months. Do we turn around now? The mayor advised one SUV of guards ahead to
check the roads for bombs. I didn’t know how they could spot anything in the
rock-strewn sands, but the guards pronounced the route safe.

As we
pulled into town, a beautiful landscape unfolded before us: a beach of powder
white sand several hundred yards wide, a slow rolling surf, and bright turquoise
waters. Eyl is a vacation resort waiting to happen. But for now, it is a
pirates’ dream hideout, protected by miles of desert, a curtain of craggy mountains
surrounding the town, and frontage on the major sea lanes of the Indian Ocean.

On the
beach, a fleet of skiffs sat ready to deploy. But villagers we met assured us they
were fishermen’s boats. The pirates had moved south due to government pressure,
they said. It’s a plausible argument. Puntland has a functioning government and
some security forces. The pirates could do better in the south closer to
Mogadishu where there is nearly no government control. It was also clear many
residents didn’t miss the pirates. Their complaint? They had never shared their
wealth. Eyl had no fancy cars , only simple palm shacks and a scattering of
brick houses – little sign of the pirates’ millions here.

 After an hour or so in town, the police ran
toward us saying they’d captured someone at a local guest house. It was, they
said, one of the four terrorists. In the court yard, they questioned a tall
slim Somali with his shirt wrapped over his head as a makeshift blindfold. As
the soldiers inspected his car for explosives, I saw the suspect standing – a
little awkwardly – by himself. So my translator and I walked up to him and
asked him ourselves, “Are you with Al Shabaab?” He insisted he was innocent. He
didn’t even know why he had been stopped. 
The police never found explosives. Had they found the real suspects? We
didn’t know. But we had seen the two challenges facing Somalia – piracy and
terrorism – in one very remote place.

With a 12
hour trip back to Bossaso, we started the drive home by mid-afternoon. Our
luxury was a stop at a down-and-dirty roadside cafe. Normally, I’d say the goat
and rice wasn’t worth risking the stomach pains but we did – and it was the best
meal I’d had in Somalia. But it couldn’t be that easy. By early morning, within
sight of Bossaso, we hit the next roadblock: a flash flood. I’d seen the
lightning from thunderstorms in the distance but had never imagined this much
rain. The road was a torrent. We watched an SUV like ours attempt the trip,
then stall and get washed to the side of the road. We were back in our cars to
doze off and hope the water fell. Three hours later, with the sun rising and
the water down to a couple of feet, we made it.