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Africa Horn
We'll fight to death before surrendering to U.S., Russia: Somali pirates
2008-10-08
(SomaliNet) A group of Somali pirates who have hijacked a tanker loaded with military supplies say they will fight to the death before giving in to Russian and U.S. authorities.
Hokay ...
U.S. and Russia have been unable to end the standoff and remain concerned that the ship's cargo of 33 tanks and other weapons could fall into enemy hands.

However, a local official reported that the pirates turned down a demand from Islamist insurgents for some of the arms.

The tense situation off the coast of Somalia began 11 days ago when the pirates took control of the Ukrainian vessel MV Faina. They have asked for a ransom of about $22 million, or 11 million British pounds, to release the 21 Ukrainian, Latvian and Russian hostages and the cargo.

"If we are attacked we will defend ourselves until every last one of us dies," Sugule Ali, a spokesman for the pirates, said in an interview over satellite telephone from the ship. "We only need money and if we are paid, then everything will be OK," he said. "No one can tell us what to do."

Ali's words came as U.S. warships continued to surround the ship and American helicopters buzzed overhead.

A Russian frigate is also expected to arrive within days.

It may come as some comfort to authorities that the group reportedly refused to hand over arms to the al Shabaab group, which opposes Somalia's interim government. But the outcome of the stand-off remains uncertain.
Posted by:Fred

#18  WAFF > STRATEGYPAGE - FRANCE AND RUSSIA WANT TO PLAY ROUGH, in Affrique [AfRICA] agz Somali Pirates. UNO-UNSC formally requested to consider and approve MIL-LED "VIOLENT OPERATIONS" AGZ LOCAL PIRACY, espec as per Somali.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2008-10-08 20:37  

#17  TOPIX > ISLAMIC COURTS THREATEN TO ATTACK KENYA.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2008-10-08 20:33  

#16  I can't speak for Air Force attitudes these days but based on conversations I've had lately I doubt you'd get any support for such a strike from Army officers, OP.   Lots of reasons for it, including the ubiquity of electronic media a la abu Graib.
Posted by: lotp   2008-10-08 19:12  

#15  Old Patriot, I read exerpts from a VC diary about an Arclight. The guy was in the best hardened bunker they had and still I think he knew it was a miracle he lived. 10 feet of topsoil overturned.

I read that about the time of the original Gulf War. I pretty much knew anyone underneath our bombing was gonna be in no shape to fight afterwards.

The one thing Somalia hasn't really learned is there aren't many people that would even notice if one of their coastal towns disappeared.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2008-10-08 18:29  

#14  I'm listening OP and in complete agreement. Wasn't the argument of an overall life saving one of the main arguments for that little 'event' in Japan back in August of 1945?
We've gone from 'Fat Man' and 'Little Boy' to 'A Nation of Pussies.'
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2008-10-08 17:04  

#13  I keep saying, but nobody's listening. The Somalis are like all Arabs, they follow the strong horse. One six-ship B-52 ARCLIGHT strike from 45,000 feet at 3AM would put an end to ALL the piracy along the Somali coast. It will surely suck for the town chosen as the first target, but in the end it'll save lives. Even knowing what it was, my first live introduction to ARCLIGHT nearly soiled my drawers to the knee. Can you imagine what it'd be like for a bunch of 7th-Century semi-nomads in the middle of the night? Flying at 45,000 feet, you don't hear a B-52. The only thing you hear are the screams of the bombs as they enter terminal velocity, and the sudden explosions that go on, and on, and on, and... The overpressure from the continuous explosions were enough to kill healthy, fully-grown Indian elephants (and just about everything else) five miles from the actual impact point. In Vietnam, the explosions tore to pieces huge trees 300 feet high and five or six feet around. Think of the impact where there are no trees or much of anything else to absorb the shock. Just one attack would change the entire complexion of the fight in the Muddled East. Add to that leaked information that the US is pulling 60-70 older "D" models out of mothballs and refurbishing them, and see which way the wind starts blowing.

The United States has forgotten that one of the major objectives of war is to make the enemy so afraid of you he quits without a fight. It's getting a lot of American military personnel killed.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2008-10-08 16:16  

#12  Sucks to be an innocent fisherman

Give a man a fish and he will eat today. Send an anti-ship missile his way and his eating problems are over...
Posted by: M. Murcek   2008-10-08 12:20  

#11  If those are your preconditions before talks, so be it.

Everything that floats along the coast of Somalia should be sunk and any fascility that can launch or build a boat should be blasted. Sucks to be an innocent fisherman but that's life. Pirates cannot be tolerated.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2008-10-08 11:48  

#10  Good luck with that "surrendering" part.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2008-10-08 11:23  

#9  Other articles say they have lotsa guns, but at some point the refrigerator is gonna get empty. And maybe the only available take out will be ham sammiches.....(and beer).
And even if the authorities cave to the food demands, they could always 'enhance' the food with knock out drugs.
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2008-10-08 10:55  

#8  Usually, if you have to say it, you don't mean it. And it's not like these pirates are fighting for some kind of ideology - they're just after loot.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-10-08 10:48  

#7  Enough of this death talk. Let's have some actual death, shall we?
Posted by: M. Murcek   2008-10-08 10:41  

#6  Sounds like a win-win situation.
Posted by: RWV   2008-10-08 09:52  

#5  No problem.
I'm sure some SEAL teams would be more than happy to grant you that wish.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-10-08 09:46  

#4  "We only need money and if we are paid, then everything will be OK," he said. "No one can tell us what to do."

Have Paulson and Bernanke gone..OFFSHORE?

Posted by: Besoeker   2008-10-08 09:17  

#3  Now it's $22million? I guess that's what they call inflation.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-10-08 08:49  

#2  How can the Somalian pirates hand over the arms to the other Somalian pirates (Shabaab) when the ship that they seized is surrounded by the American Navy? Just words?
Posted by: Sonny Ebbeamp1305   2008-10-08 05:53  

#1  See WIRED NEWS > CAN MERCENARIES [Contractor Companies] RETURN AS PIRATE FOES?
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2008-10-08 02:53  

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