The Staging Ground for Piracy

“Our coast
guard has one boat”

The trip
into Somalia gives an early taste of life on the ground here: nothing follows a
schedule or a plan, only dumb luck. The airline we booked went out of business
the week before our trip, so we had to hitch a ride in with a humanitarian team
from Kuwait. It was, without exaggeration, the oldest plane I’ve ever flown on
– an ancient turboprop piloted by a team of Ukrainians in matching sleeveless
red t-shirts. We were the only plane at the airport as we arrived. But as soon
as we landed, we got the royal treatment, greeted by a long convoy of gleaming
SUV’s, ready to carry us and the members of Puntland’s Special Police Unit who
would serve as our guards on the trip.

Bossaso is
Puntland’s largest port, and the staging ground for Puntland’s fight against
piracy.  But the coast guard consists of
just one working patrol boat – a 15-foot skiff which had been confiscated from
pirates. The other patrol boats were tied up in various states of disrepair.
The commander explained that he and his forces borrowed fishing boats when they
needed them – and proudly showed off their trophies: a pile of captured pirate skiffs,
a handful of Russian and Chinese RPG’s, and the long, rickety metal ladders the
pirates use to board the giant cargo ships they attack. We tried to raise the
ladders ourselves – on land – and couldn’t imagine how they’d do the same in a
skiff on the rolling seas. Firing the RPG’s from the skiffs would be an even
bigger challenge. Our security guard – a former member of the British special
forces – said his unit had tried the same in training and always failed.

It becomes clear
very early here that Somalia is fighting a losing battle against piracy,
despite the international force of 29 ships now patrolling the shipping lanes
of the Gulf of Aden just to the north. Attacks were up sharply in 2009. The
head of port security told us the number of Somalis involved in piracy was 1000
and rising. To date, they had 280 in prison, all of them sentenced to death by
firing squad. But it remains an irresistible profession for many here. The
going rate for a successful hijacking: $50,000 per pirate, with the rest of the
ransom – which can reach as high as $7 million – going to the criminal gangs which
oversee the business. Somali officials are suspected of involvement. The
security chief told us a local police commander was recently arrested for
involvement.

Other jobs
are painfully scarce in Somalia, with the exception of one: terrorism. Al
Shabaab, the home-grown Islamist terror group now affiliated with Al Qaeda, is
also a strong and growing presence here. Somalia has become a magnet for
jihadis from around the world, including the US. We will meet some of the members
of Al Shabaab (more on that in the coming days). But for now, consider this
fact: the pirates and the terrorists are linked, with Al Shabaab charging the
pirates a ‘tax ‘of $100,000 on each hijacking. It is an enormous source of
funding – and another reason US officials consider Somalia, along with Yemen, a
rising terror threat.