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| Africa Horn |
| Somali rebel chief advises pirates to sink arms-laden ship if ransom isn't paid |
| 2008-10-03 |
| Somali Islamist insurgents on Thursday urged pirates holding a Ukrainian ship carrying military hardware to destroy the cargo and the vessel if they are not paid ransom. As US warships and other navies blockaded the MV Faina off Somalia's Indian Ocean coast, the pirates have insisted on being paid $20 million to release the cargo and the 21-member crew. "If they do not get the money they are demanding, we call on them to either burn down the ship and its arms or sink it," Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, a spokesman for the Shabab movement, said in an interview. But Robow said his movement, which is gradually gaining ground over interim government troops in southern Somalia, was not linked to the pirates who seized the Belize-flagged freighter last week as it headed for Mombasa in Kenya. "We have no contacts and links with the pirates and they are in the waters for their own interests," he said. "It is a crime to take commercial ships but hijacking vessels that carry arms for the enemy of God is a different matter," added Robow, whose group nearly stamped out piracy when it ruled southern Somalia last year as part of an Islamist government ousted by Ethiopian and interim government forces in early 2007. Robow claimed that the 33 Soviet-era T72 battle tanks and other military hardware on the MV Faina belonged to Ethiopian forces, who invaded at the behest of the Somali interim government to oust the Islamists from power. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Time for the insurance company to send in some mercs. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-10-03 16:51 |
| #2 Robow, whose group nearly stamped out piracy when it ruled southern Somalia last year as part of an Islamist government ousted by Ethiopian and interim government forces in early 2007. "Stanped". Yeah, that's the word. Sure... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-10-03 12:38 |
| #1 Wantome help? |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2008-10-03 02:00 |