Tension mounted Sunday between Somali pirates holding a Saudi supertanker and Islamist fighters threatening to attack them, with a week remaining for the ship's owners to meet a $25 million ransom demand. "If the pirates want peace, they had better release the tanker," Sheikh Ahmad, a spokesman for the Al-Shabaab group in the coastal region of Harardhere, told AFP by phone.While part of the Islamist Union of Somali Courts government that brought rule to large swathes of the country in 2006, the group had made strides in clamping down on the now prolific practice.
The Sirius Star, a huge tanker carrying around $100 million worth of crude oil and owned by Saudi Aramco, was hijacked in the space of 16 minutes in the Indian Ocean on November 15. Pirates have since anchored it off their base in Harardhere, north of Mogadishu, and demanded the ransom be paid by November 30.
Al-Shabaab group, which controls much of southern and central Somalia and rejects an internationally backed peace process until Ethiopian forces withdraw, has positioned fighters in and around Harardhere in recent days. Islamist leaders have stressed that piracy is a capital offense under Islam and officially condemned the surge in acts of piracy in Somalia's waters, which has begun to disrupt international trade.
A member of the pirate group holding the Sirius Star retorted that his own men were not afraid of Al-Shabaab.
"We are the Al-Shabaab of the sea and we can't be scared by the Al-Shabaab of the land," Mohammad Said told AFP. "If anybody attempts to attack, that would be suicide."
Said announced to AFP on Thursday that his group was demanding $25 million to release the vessel, which is carrying the equivalent of almost a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily output.
"I am not on the tanker at the moment because I am coordinating what is happening on the ground," he said. "There is a small Al-Shabaab vanguard on the ground but we also have a strong presence. Every Somali has great respect for the holy kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We have nothing against them but unfortunately what happened was just business for us and I hope the Saudis will understand," the pirate said.