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Pirates attack the Maersk Alabama... again

Wow, someone clearly didn't get (or couldn't read) the memo about not attacking the Maersk Alabama. Not deeply surprising if you think about it 1) undereducation and lack of communication 2) you're thousands of leagues away from any other targets and you think, what the hell, why don't I attack this ship.

But! The long and short of it is that another group of pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama again and were deterred by the ship's security measures.

A security team on board the Maersk Alabama responded with small-arms fire, long-range acoustical devices painful to the human ear and evasive maneuvers to thwart the attack, the Navy said in a statement.

Interesting stuff. This editorial caught my eye in the shuffle of google news, it's worth a read.

Pirates in the Media: October 2009

Following up Wednesday's Pirates in the News, here's some lighter, entertainment news.

The Cayman Islands is having its annual Pirate Festival coming up, so if you're in the Cayman Islands, and you know you'd like to be, check that out.
The Cayman Islands are hosting their 32nd annual Pirates Week Festival, Nov. 12-22, with music, street dances, food festivals, costumes, games and more in Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac.

The town house of Inverness, Scotland flew a pirate flag briefly to promote a Halloween event on the Loch but was taken down after mariners suggested it was in poor taste.

And finally, Columbia Pictures has hired screenwriter Billy Ray, author of Flightplan, Breach, State of Play and The Shooter, to pen their slated film about Captain Richard Phillips' ordeal aboard the Maersk Alabama.

"The studio also optioned the film rights to Phillips' upcoming memoir, "A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs and Five Dangerous Days," which will be published in April by Hyperion.

Billy Ray is currently working on Gears of War and Motorcade.

Pirates in the News, August 13, 2009

Hey there pirateological readers,

Plenty has been going on in the world of piracy, and in my life as well, so it's worth noting that this will not be a comprehensive summary of recent pirate news, but I'll hit some highlights.

The number one sexiest pirate story right now may or may not actually involve pirates in any way... but it COULD and that's got a lot of people all aflutter.

The Maltese ship the Arctic Sea crewed by 15 Russians disappeared on July 28 after communicating with a station in Dover, England. It is suspected that piratical foul play is afoot.

Four days earlier she had apparently been boarded in the Baltic Sea.

The intruders appear to have left the ship some 12 hours later on a high-speed inflatable and allowed the vessel to continue on its passage but with its communications equipment damaged.

However, there are fears that the 3,988tn ship, carrying about £1m worth of sawn timber from Finland to Algeria, was still under the control of pirates when contact was made with the British Coastguards.

Mark Clark, of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, said Dover Coastguard did not suspect anything untoward as a supposed crew member made radio contact before the ship made its passage along the Channel.

The person on board the vessel told the Coastguard the ship was due to arrive in Bejaia in northern Algeria on August 4 at 11pm.

The Russian Navy has sent a ship that claimed to spot the Arctic Sea on August 13 but now denies the earlier reports. The vessel is presumed hijacked, and it's fairly compelling to think that in the waters around Europe it's still this easy to lose track of a cargo ship.

In other news, the Turkish Navy captured five suspected pirates on August 11.

Also, Merchant Marine Schools are increasing the course loads and available training programs for dealing with pirate attacks and piracy in general.

"... Cadets at the Merchant Marine Academy and SUNY Maritime are being taught to reduce the risk of pirate attacks on their own. "Anti-piracy training has been part of the USMMA curriculum for at least the past 18 years," says Captain Jon Helmick, director of USMMA's Logistics & Intermodal Transportation Program. He adds, however, that "because the enhancement of vessel security in general improves the ability to deal with piracy in particular, it is somewhat misleading to separate out those training topics that are piracy-focused." Academy graduates receive an officer's commission into another branch of the armed forces, either on active or reserve duty. Those entering the reserves often take civilian or government jobs in the maritime industry, including serving on ocean-going merchant vessels, "brown water" coastal trade ships, tugboats, or barges, says Captain Dan Croce, a director at GMATS."

And on a lighter note, Captain Phillips of the Maersk Alabama was interviewed on the Today Show and is still inundated by offers to portray his story.

Missing Money from Maersk Alabama

There is an inquiry being launched into $30,000 missing from the Maersk Alabama.

The pirates reportedly forced Phillips to take $30,000 in cash from the Maersk Alabama safe during the April siege. The sole surviving pirate suspect, Abduwali Muse, allegedly distributed the money to his three accomplices, according to the report.

After the rescue, during which three of the pirates were killed and Muse captured, the money was not among the items listed as having been recovered by Navy SEALs.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is now questioning military personnel who had a hand in the Alabama rescue operation in the Gulf of Aden to try and track down the money, the report quotes an unnamed Pentagon source.

Pirates in the Movies!

The film rights to the Captain of the Maersk Alabama's story have been nabbed by Columbia Pictures.

Studio, which has also optioned the film rights to Phillips’ upcoming memoir, will bring to the bigscreen the cargo ship captain’s capture by four Somali pirates and subsequent rescue by the U.S. Navy.

Michael DeLuca, Kevin Spacey, Dana Brunetti and Scott Rudin are onboard to produce. Brunetti, a former member of the Coast Guard, was particularly instrumental in helping land the rights. He flew to the East Coast to meet with Phillips to discuss how the film would be handled.

"We were drawn to this remarkable story of heroism and courage as events were unfolding off the coast of Africa," Col co-prexy Doug Belgrad said.

Pirate on Trial: Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse

Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse has pled not guilty and will be tried as an adult despite his legal teams efforts to prove that he is under 18 years of age.

On Trial: Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse

From The Daily Intel:

While in court, his lawyers also argued that since being in custody, Muse has been treated unfairly: He was allowed only one one-minute phone call to his mother back in Somalia, with whom he wanted to discuss his injured hand, and he's being kept practically in solitary confinement — even when he's around people, he can't talk to them, they said, because (unsurprisingly) there's a dearth of Somali translators in prison.

"He’s confused. He’s terrified,” one of the lawyers, Deirdre von Dornum, said. “As you can imagine, he’s a boy who fishes, and now he’s ended up in solitary confinement here.” She added, “He’s having a very difficult time.”

Pirates in the News, May 20, 2009

President Barack Obama "meets" with speechwriter Cody Keenan, who dressed as a pirate for an Oval Office photo taken for use in the President's humorous speech to the White House Correspondents Association dinner May 9, 2009. "But as I said during the campaign, we can't just talk to our friends. As hard as it is, we also have to talk to our enemies, and I've begun to do exactly that," the President said in his speech.

Thanks to Jenn of Per Omnia Saecula for directing me to the White House Flickr Feed for this gem.

Pirate Attacks are up since last year, there are still lots of ships being attacked, captured, defended, pirates being tried, etc... in both the Gulf of Aden and in Southeast Asia. But in this installment of Pirates in the News I'm going to focus on just a few high profile issues, for more minutitae of merchant sailors returning to Batavia, Illinois and the like, check back later because today we have...


Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, pirate and now accused ringleader of the attack on the Maersk Alabama, was indicted today in a New York City court. The indictement on 10 charges is here.

Here's how I imagine this is being played out:

>Bwank Bwank <
(Dwonk Dwonk?)

Can't you just imagine Jeff Goldblum, Chris Noth and Ice-T arguing with Richard Belzer about why it's suddenly a homiside in their division? Then suddenly their Lieutenant, Anita Van Bueren comes in and settles them down just before the combined squinting, glaring and snark tears a hole in the fabric of the universe. Despite all their differences, they see through the BS and we are all made richer for their squabling, as Ice-T made an important point about the young Somali man's humanity.

>Bwonk Bwonk<

Meanwhile... in the office of the district attorney, a gaggle of law-bunnies surround increasingly grizzled D.A. Jack McCoy who is transparently concerned about how this will affect his re-election campaign.

Will he seem hard enough on foreign pirates who somehow have fallen under his jurisdiction???? All the law bunnies are there, the blonde ascerbic one, the blonde one who everyone hated, the bruinette from way back, the bruinettes from the 90s, Mariska Hargitay who was never a lawyer on the show but is there for whatever reason. The placeholder male A.D.A. steps up to the plate with the brief crafted by the zombie of the bruinette who was written out of the show by being decaptiated in a car accident with Benjamin Bratt, "what's the only way we can say that the New York DA's office is hard on piracy, I mean, other than the fact that everyone else who boarded that single ship was gunned down ruthlessly by super-powered snipers, we need to make an example of this young man..."

>Bwonk Bwonk<

And that's about as far as I'm going to script that out until NBC returns my calls about writing for the show. But really courts? it's not good enough that he would be guilty of piracy but he has to be HEAD pirate? really guys? but dear reader, are you with me that the "pirate leader" thing feels a little like one of Sam Waterston's entertaining but reaching gambits from America's favorite imitation-law show? on a lighter note, you know he'd end up singing the star spangled banner in his summation, or at least do a spoken word version destined for YouTube greatness.

But probably the most telling thing about Muse is that smile:

That smile has disconcerted many, isn't this man a dangerous criminal? an enemy of America?
On trial in America Muse is hardly facing death for the first time, why shouldn't he smile? He's famous, he's going to be treated at least with consistency, and prison in America is very likely a better option than jail in Africa. That said, two more articles came to my attention today:

Somali Pirates Embrace Capture as a way to Europe tells us a little more about that smile, in the Netherlands pirates on trial for their crimes are exclaiming their intentions to stay in the country, applying for asylum, which would be very difficult legally to reject.

"Life is good here," said one of the defendants, named Sayid, about his experience in a Dutch jail.

"I appeal to the government not to send me back to Somalia. The people who live here respect human rights. I wish to settle here."

Willem-Jan Ausma, a Dutch defence attorney who is representing another pirate, described his client's relief to be in a Western prison.

"My client feels safe here. His own village is dominated by poverty and sharia [Islamic law] but here he has good food and can play football and watch television. He thinks the lavatory in his cell is fantastic," he said.

Mr Ausma has told the Somali that he will be considered for a residence permit after serving his sentence, expected to be a maximum of four years in prison.

"He intends to send for his wife and children as soon as he is released from prison. He knows he cannot easily be sent back to Somalia. He loves it here in the Netherlands," Mr Ausma told the NRC Handelsblad newspaper.

Mr Ausma has also warned that ongoing piracy trials in the Netherlands, France and the United States will encourage pirates to commit crimes, for the purpose of being captured, rather than deterring attacks on Western flagged vessels.

"Anything is better than Somalia," he said.

Is this a shock? no. But it highlights the reasons people turn pirate to begin with, the hope for a better life, it is a legitimate opportunity, one of the only ones available in the area. It is natural that these men would want to continue their efforts to improve their lives and the lives of their families however they can and until better options emerge in the region, they're still going to do this. This segues into the next eye-catcher:

Somali Pirates may become warlords.

"There are growing indications that wealthier pirates ... may become new warlords and create extremist organizations" that could further destabilize the lawless east African nation, he warned.

He did not elaborate, but called for international efforts to help stamp out the threat, including by setting up a Somali coast guard.

"We need to establish a well equipped, trained coast guard to prevent pirate boats before they go into deep sea," he said, speaking in English. "Pirates can be apprehended best while they are still on ground and preparing for expedition."

Senior U.S. and European officials echoed the call for efforts to move beyond naval action.

"The solution to piracy is a stable Somalia. As long as there is no rule of law, we can only try to mitigate the problem but not eliminate it," said Capt. Chris Chambers, director of the multinational naval force based in Bahrain.

A stable Somalia may not look like the old colonial nation-states though, it is clear that a national identity never really took in Somalia, and the more intimate cultural and social definitions that provide structure, sustenance and services however minimal are where a man's loyalties will reside in this region.

It would be a mistake to assume that dropping a new national government on Somalia whole-cloth is going to make sense without providing representation to groups and regions that can provide real improvement in the life of their constituents. Until basic needs can be met on the ground, things like a national assembly or unified Somalia will not be particularly appealing, or perceived as anything other than the hopeful dreams of unwelcome interlopers.

Pirates in the News, Spring 09

... and wow was there a lot. Since the taking of the Maersk Alabama there have been squadrons of articles about pirates, pirate attacks and pirates in general.

The Maersk Alabama is still making news, here's a smattering of different articles about it that are interesting:

Interview with a crewman of the Maersk Alabama, and here, finally, the Captain of the Maersk Alabama talks about piracy in general:

Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, has just begun testifying about his ordeal as a hostage of Somalian pirates before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In his statement, the captain told senators that he didn't believe arming crew members was the solution to the increasing problem of pirate attacks.

"These pirates are evolving and we must stay with the curve and evolve with them to stop these incidents from happening," said Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vt.

Phillips was freed when U.S. Navy snipers killed three pirates aboard the lifeboat who were guarding him on April 12. The Navy returned those bodies today to Somalian officials, transferring them in white wooden coffins. The Associated Press has more detailed hearing coverage here.

A comment on Obama
Then, in the days/week after there were a bunch of interesting articles, linked here for your perusal.

Timeline of pirate captures.

Two more pirate attacks foiled, including... Pirate attack foiled with deck chair!

A Puntland Court Jails 37 Pirates, 9 Pirates were arrested in the Seychelles

More has been coming out of Somalia about motivation for piracy there, specifically, and we've heard this before, dear reader, that the sale of fishing rights to other nations pushed coastal communities into piracy.

Somali Pirate to be tried in NYC

Abdiweli Muse will be the first person tried in the U.S. for piracy in more than a century, even as his parents plea for leniency.

U.S. officials said Muse is 18 years old, but Abdilkadir Muse, the teenager's father, told VOA's Somali service his son is only 16 and came under the influence of gangs and money.

Pirates in the News: Maersk Alabama, done.

So, for a Happy Easter present to the Captain of the Maersk Alabama, the a Navy Seal Sniper team killed all three of his captors.

Generally, the message here is "Don't expect to get away if you pirate American Vessels or capture Americans, just don't do it, it's no good for you." Which is a solid message to send, and is frankly, not unexpected.

Two of the captors had poked their heads out of a rear hatch of the lifeboat, exposing themselves to clear shots, and the third could be seen through a window in the bow, pointing an automatic rifle at the captain, who was tied up inside the 18-foot lifeboat, senior Navy officials said.

It took only three remarkable shots — one each by snipers firing from a distance at dusk, using night-vision scopes, the officials said. Within minutes, rescuers slid down ropes from the Bainbridge, climbed aboard the lifeboat and found the three pirates dead. They then untied Captain Phillips, ending the contretemps at sea that had riveted much of the world’s attention. A fourth pirate had surrendered earlier.

Of course, many pirates in Somalia are posturing as though this doesn't affect them:

In Somalia itself, other pirates reacted angrily to the news that Captain Phillips had been rescued, and some said they would avenge the deaths of their colleagues by killing Americans in sea hijackings to come.

“Every country will be treated the way it treats us,” Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the pirate den of Gaan, a central Somali town, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying in a telephone interview. “In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying.”

To be honest, America's now proven ability and willingness to hunt down and kill pirates who endanger its citizens will regardless affect the business model of pirates in the future, and if it does not, American has proven able to take on pirates in its history, like the shores of Tripoli?

Pirates in the News: Maersk Alabama, hostage update

Captain Richard Phillips, the Alabama Maersk container ship captain who was taken hostage by pirates, had tried to escape by jumping into the water but his captors followed and retrieved him. It's believed Phillips was trying to swim to the U.S.S. Bainbridge, a naval destroyer that's been in contact with the pirates.

Pirates in the News, RIGHT NOW.

The Maersk Alabama was boarded earlier today by 4 Somali pirates, but the 20 Americans aboard who had been transporting relief supplies, managed to overcome the pirates and retake their ship. This whole thing happened over the course of a few hours and is considered "under control." Three of the pirates escaped but one is in custody.

The escaped pirates took the ship's captain hostage and coalition forces are following the lifeboat with pirates and hostages