IMB Director Pottengal Mukundan commented: “Whilst the use of hijacked vessels as mother ships is not a new phenomenon, the abduction of crew members could signal a significant new development.”
At least five large hijacked cargo ships and three fishing vessels have acted as mother ships in the last couple of months, posing a new and significant threat to the safety of shipping. The five cargo vessels range in size from MT 5,000 to 72,000 in deadweight – or cargo carrying capacity – and include four tankers and a general cargo vessel. More than 100 crew members from these hijacked cargo vessels, are being forced to facilitate the attacks and in effect provide a human shield to any potential naval intervention.
This is infuriating to read, because the world is just standing by as a crime wave takes place. It is frustrating from my point of view because here we have this vibrant and experienced wartime security contracting industry willing and able to protect every boat out there, and yet the response to this fast paced piracy scourge has been to throw money at them. Keep paying ransoms and keep fueling the very industry that benefits from these criminal acts–insanity…..
The other story here is the piracy strategies out there are evolving and these folks are able to scale up their operations because of these new strategies. What they are doing is using one vessel to attack another larger vessel, and then using those larger vessels to prey on similar larger vessels. Then they use the hostages from the prior vessels taken as a kind of mobile human shield/hostage currency.
This strategy is also great for false flag or Q-ship style attacks. If vessels are unable to tell if another captured vessel is under pirate control, then these captured ships can do all sorts of interesting things. They can maneuver closer to other ships, they can increase their speed to match that of other ships, they can pretend to be a ship in distress, and they can force all of their captured hostages to pretend to be active crew members on the top decks. Today’s pirates certainly understand the value of Q-ships to their industry.
Finally, today’s current anti-piracy strategy sucks. We have billions of dollars of naval hardware from around the world, that cost millions of dollars to operate every day, and their strategies have not stopped today’s piracy. We have more hostages taken, more boats taken, and an expansion of piracy territories. In other words, we have yet to offer an effective challenge to this innovative and vibrant piracy industry.
And now other entrepreneurs are watching and learning from today’s pirates. So yes, it would be nice to square away Somalia on the mainland and that might put a little bit of a dent in the industry itself. But I think what today’s strategists forget is that what we are looking at are the beginnings of an ‘open source piracy’ era. Pirates are emerging from all over the world, and they are learning from what the Somali’s are doing. It is a very basic concept, and because there is no effective anti-piracy strategy to stop them this open source piracy will just spread and flourish.
Of course putting armed security on the boats is a no-brainer, but that alone will not stop this open source piracy scourge. You need to create an industry out of destroying these folks, and not just an industry that deals with the effects of piracy. We could also learn a thing or two from those that actually wiped out piracy. Guys like Pompey or Woodes Rogers did an excellent job of eradicating this scum, and yet here we are in modern times with the same problems they faced and we have yet to get organized and do what is necessary. –Matt
Hostage-taking at sea rises to record levels, says IMB
Latest attack changes dynamic of Somali piracy
Somali pirates closer to India; premiums up
Hostage-taking at sea rises to record levels, says IMB
Monday, 17 January 2011
More people were taken hostage at sea in 2010 than in any year on record, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) global piracy report disclosed today. Pirates captured 1,181 seafarers and killed eight. A total of 53 ships were hijacked.
The number of pirate attacks against ships has risen every year for the last four years, IMB revealed. Ships reported 445 attacks in 2010, up 10% from 2009. While 188 crew members were taken hostage in 2006, 1,050 were taken in 2009 and 1,181 in 2010.
“These figures for the number of hostages and vessels taken are the highest we have ever seen,” said Captain Pottengal Mukundan, Director of the IMB’s Piracy Reporting Centre, which has monitored piracy worldwide since 1991. “The continued increase in these numbers is alarming.”
“As a percentage of global incidents, piracy on the high seas has increased dramatically over armed robbery in territorial waters,” said Captain Mukundan. “On the high seas off Somalia, heavily armed pirates are overpowering ocean-going fishing or merchant vessels to use as a base for further attacks. They capture the crew and force them to sail to within attacking distance of other unsuspecting vessels.”
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