Hey guys and gals, I made some updates and added some cool stuff to the site to test out. The Feral Jundi Youtube page is just a collection of youtube videos, and you can click on the Youtube icon to the right to check it out. The Lloyd’s List Security and Piracy widget is a cool deal, and self explanatory. And finally, the Jundi Gear page and site is a great place to find some of the books that I have reviewed. Also check out some of the other goodies I found for sale on Amazon. –Head Jundi
Monday, December 15, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Kidnap and Ransom: How Do You Pay a Pirate’s Ransom?
How do you pay a pirate’s ransom?
By Robyn Hunter
BBC News
03/12/2008
Pirates in Somalia are making a fortune by hijacking ships and demanding ransoms to set them and their crews free – one official estimates the total this year to be around $150m.
There are conflicting reports about how much they want for the Saudi oil tanker they seized last month, the Sirius Star, and its cargo of two million barrels of oil, but how do you negotiate and deliver a pirate ransom in the 21st Century?
From what can be gleaned – how the negotiations run their course and how the ransoms are paid – what goes on would be worthy of a Hollywood action movie script.
“No matter what process is taken, they always go through a middleman,” advises BBC Somali service analyst Said Musa. “And trust is at the heart of everything.”
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Photo: US Marshals Transporting a Fugitive in Iraq, 2006
US Marshal Service Website
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Afghanistan: Ten Silver Stars for Afghan Battle
Talk about an incredible fight! The best part of this article was Walding’s quote “I am John Wayne”. Anyone that can tie his amputated foot to his body, apply a tourniquet around the stump and self inject morphine, and still remain conscious in a fight like that, is pretty tough in my opinion. – Head Jundi
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Ten Silver Stars for Afghan battle
10 Special Forces soldiers honored for seven-hour firefight with insurgents
By Ann Scott Tyson
The Washington Post
updated 2:09 a.m. PT, Fri., Dec. 12, 2008
WASHINGTON – After jumping out of helicopters at daybreak onto jagged, ice-covered rocks and into water at an altitude of 10,000 feet, the 12-man Special Forces team scrambled up the steep mountainside toward its target — an insurgent stronghold in northeast Afghanistan.
“Our plan,” Capt. Kyle M. Walton recalled in an interview, “was to fight downhill.”
But as the soldiers maneuvered toward a cluster of thick-walled mud buildings constructed layer upon layer about 1,000 feet farther up the mountain, insurgents quickly manned fighting positions, readying a barrage of fire for the exposed Green Berets.
A harrowing, nearly seven-hour battle unfolded on that mountainside in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province on April 6, as Walton, his team and a few dozen Afghan commandos they had trained took fire from all directions. Outnumbered, the Green Berets fought on even after half of them were wounded — four critically — and managed to subdue an estimated 150 to 200 insurgents, according to interviews with several team members and official citations.
Today, Walton and nine of his teammates from Operational Detachment Alpha 3336 of the 3rd Special Forces Group will receive the Silver Star for their heroism in that battle — the highest number of such awards given to the elite troops for a single engagement since the Vietnam War.
That chilly morning, Walton’s mind was on his team’s mission: to capture or kill several members of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) militant group in their stronghold, a village perched in Nuristan’s Shok Valley that was accessible only by pack mule and so remote that Walton said he believed that no U.S. troops, or Soviet ones before them, had ever been there.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Maritime Security: US Efforts at the UN Concerning Somali Piracy
Excellent news. The anti-piracy effort should be a land and sea based strategy, and I am glad this is the thinking at DoS. –Head Jundi
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Office of the Spokesman for the Department of State
Washington, DC
December 11, 2008
Question Taken at December 11, 2008 Daily Press Briefing
Taken Question: U.S. Efforts at the UN Concerning Somali Piracy
Question: What is the status of current U.S. efforts at the UN concerning Somali piracy? Have there been any discussions on a land-based effort?
Answer: The United States recently circulated to Security Council members a draft resolution that would encourage the establishment of improved international cooperation between and among states, expand efforts to build judicial capacity to prosecute and incarcerate pirates, and affirm that those engaged in acts of piracy may be designated under the existing Security Council Somalia sanctions regimes.
The U.S. draft would also provide member states and regional organizations, in cooperation with the Somalia Transitional Federal Government, to extend its piracy interdiction efforts to include potential operations on Somali territory.
We believe that this resolution would mark an important step forward in the international community’s efforts to suppress and prevent acts of piracy off the coast of Somalia.
Released on December 11, 2008
Link to Statement Here
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