Saturday, November 21, 2009
Company Spotlight: Nexus Consulting Group
O’Keefe said Nexus hires former U.S. military operatives such as Navy Seals who could disable a pirate skiff before it comes within range to launch a rocket-propelled grenade, the preferred weapon of pirates.
Having a proven deterrent aboard “is actually lowering the cost of kidnap and ransom insurance by as much as 40 percent” for the shipping lines who hire them, she said. -Elizabeth R. O’Keefe, a lawyer in Woburn, Mass., who represents Nexus and Murphy.
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I salute Shane Murphy and Nexus Consulting Group for not beating around the bush, and calling it like it is. Mr. Murphy has witnessed first hand how these pirates operate, and the conclusions that he and his company have come to as to how to deal with these pirates and protect boats is spot on. You must have weapons that give the boat standoff distance, so that these clowns can’t get in close and use their RPG’s. Worse yet, the PKM can reach a boat at an even further distance, and the DShK can reach even further. All of these weapons are floating around in Somalia, and I guarantee that these pirates are investing in even better stuff with all of that money they have been making off of ransoms. You get the picture with this kind of arms race, and as these pirates become more desperate and more ruthless, the boats must have the kind of weapons and skills that will give the boat overwhelming fire superiority and the crews and security must have sound naval warfare strategies to deal with this stuff.
By the way, they are looking for guys to put in their database, and just go through the link for their company here. –Matt
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Somali group puts out call to Seekonk’s Murphy
November 19, 2009
By Thomas J. Morgan and Donita Naylor
SEEKONK, Mass. — Attention Shane Murphy: The Somali Community Association of Ohio wants to take you out to dinner and ask for your help in protecting the Indian Ocean from pirates.
Murphy, of Seekonk, was chief officer of the Maersk Alabama in April when Somali-based pirates took over the ship. He no longer works for Maersk, but is still a merchant marine and consults for a private marine security company.
Bashir Haji, vice president of the Columbus, Ohio, Somali group, tried to reach Murphy on Wednesday after pirates attacking the Maersk Alabama were driven off by the ship’s crew armed with guns. Haji said the group wants to ask Murphy “to come to Columbus to give a speech about his ordeal with the pirates.”
Legal News: U.S. to Drop Shooting Case Against Blackwater Guard
The trial likely will hinge on whether the Blackwater guards were provoked. Iraqi witnesses say Blackwater fired the only shots. Some members of the Blackwater convoy said they saw gunfire. Others said they didn’t. Radio logs of the shooting indicate the guards were fired on.
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Yep, that is my thoughts on this too. These men were operating in a war zone, and if in fact they were fired upon, then I think the prosecution does not have a case. Instead, they will have to fall back on the BS anti-machine gun law to do any kind of damage to these men. My guess is that this will end up just like the Haditha case, with the Marines. This is war, and to prove that these men decided to wake up one day, go on a convoy operation and deviate from the mission to purposely kill innocent people unprovoked, is a stretch. Not to mention the radio logs, the bullet holes in the vehicles and bullets in people and things. We will see how it goes, and I truly hope for a fair trial for these guys. God knows, everyone else has already convicted them of a crime in the court of public opinion.-Matt
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US to drop shooting case against Blackwater guard
By MATT APUZZO
Nov 20, 2009
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said in court documents Friday.
The shooting in busy Nisoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. It touched off a string of investigations that ultimately led the State Department to cancel the company’s lucrative contract to guard diplomats in Iraq.
Iraqis have said they’re watching closely to see how the U.S. judicial system handles the five men accused of unleashing an unprovoked attack on civilians with machine guns and grenades.
Maritime Security: ‘Duncan Falconer’ and the Company FSI Maritime
“In Somalia, you know what the threat is: they sees ya, they chases ya, they shoots at ya and they climbs on board. That’s their technique. How do you mitigate that? Well, we’ve got intelligence sources from many recent incidents in the area; after that, it’s training the crew, preparation and reaction. Preparation is all the things you do before leaving port – training the crew, putting bars on windows, locks on the strongroom, mesh up to stop people climbing and so on.” But, he says, non-lethal force can only accomplish so much.
“At the end of the day, if you have 40 guys with RPGs and machine guns, they’re going to take your boat. And so your other option is lethal. This is where you have four or five men, with AK47s, and shoot anyone that comes near.” -Duncan Falconer
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What a background, and ‘Duncan’ has certainly been busy over the years. What I found interesting about this article, is that if you track the history of guys like Duncan, you can see the trend lines for the industry as a whole. Guys go where the money is, and as you can see from this story, kidnap and ransom, along with maritime security are the two big gigs that Duncan has been involved with. Obviously Iraq and Afghanistan have been big as well.
The focus here though is on FSI Maritime, and Duncan’s quote up top. It is the voice of reason coming from a professional. For those of you that continue to tell shipping companies not to defend self or use armed guards, doom on you. Force is the only thing these thugs understand. –Matt
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November 20, 2009
By Nick Ryan
Duncan Falconer has drawn upon his former life as a special forces soldier to become a best-selling author. Warren van Rensburg
After 10 years as an elite soldier, Duncan Falconer left the British Armed Forces to use his expertise to combat and negotiate with pirates and terrorists around the world. In his downtime he writes bestselling books. Nick Ryan meets the multi-talented man of action.”Kidnapping is the big business,” says Duncan Falconer. “You’ve got to understand that 86 per cent of the planet is below the poverty line. All these poor countries with a high criminal element – most of Africa, South America, etc – the Colombians taught us many years ago there was a lot of money to be made in kidnapping. Iraq – there were kidnapping rings set up all over the place: they weren’t kidnapping westerners, they were kidnapping rich Iraqis.”
Welcome to the sometimes deadly world of the private military contractor. PMCs, sometimes also known as private security contractors (PSCs), are modern-day mercenaries, earning vast sums protecting corporate interests in all the war-torn corners of the world. There are, or have been, tens of thousands of PMCs operating in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes with controversial results – such as the slaying of 14 innocent Iraqis by the American outfit Blackwater, in Baghdad in 2007 (for which five men are facing charges in the USA); or the infamous video available on YouTube, showing PMCs from one British contractor shooting at passing cars from the back window of their vehicle.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Funny Stuff: Mexican City of Ciudad Juarez Calls For U.N. to Help Quell Violence
I apologize for laughing, but come on? Obviously these guys have not done their homework with researching the track record of the U.N.
You don’t bring in peacekeepers, when there is no peace to keep. The cartels and drug gangs would use blue helmets for target practice, and then go back to fighting each other and the Mexican army and police.-Matt
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Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez calls for U.N. to help quell violence
By Soraya RobertsDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, November 12th 2009
Having the highest homicide rate in the world does not make for good advertising, and businesses in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez are tired of the bad rep.
Local business groups announced today that they will ask the United Nations for help in quelling the violence, reports The Associated Press.
Representatives from businesses like assembly plants and retailers plan to submit an official request for UN aid to the Mexican government and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
“This is a proposal … for international forces to come here to help out the domestic [security] forces,” said Daniel Murguia, president of the Ciudad Juarez group of the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism. “There are a lot of extortions and robberies of businesses. Many businesses are closing.”
The U.S. government has sent more than 5,000 soldiers from El Paso, Tex., but the killings and extortion have not abated.
Ciudad Juarez, population 1.5 million, has an average of seven homicides a day, with the total at 1,986 for this year through mid-October.
“We have seen the UN peacekeepers enter other countries that have a lot fewer problems than we have,” Murguia said. “What we are asking for with the blue helmets [UN peacekeepers] is that we know they are the army of peace, so we could use not only the strategies they have developed in other countries … but they also have technology.”
Mexican troops have trained local police and joined in patrolling the city, but to no avail. Rival drug gangs remain at war, and thieves have taken advantage of the atmosphere to target businesses. Thousands of stores and firms reportedly have moved or shut down as a result.
Story here.