Feral Jundi

Monday, February 28, 2011

Maritime Security: UAE Shipping Association Has Reversed Position– Backs The Use Of PSC’s On Vessels

     “We don’t feel protected by the international navies, so we need to take matters into our own hands,” said Scott Jones, first vice president of the UAESA, the leading industry body in the nation. “There is still no vessel that has armed guards on board that has been taken. It seems to be the only way we can feel relatively certain,” he said.

 

     Boy, chalk up another association that has come to grips with reality. Might I also add that these last couple of months, according to some of my readers that are in the know, has been nuts for maritime security companies. Business is picking up to say the least. Although I cannot say for sure how much of an increase there has been because no one is tracking it.  All I can go by is what I am hearing out there.

     With that said, it makes total sense that this market could be seeing a surge.  And with more boats having armed security giving problems to the pirates, there will be those boats without security that will soon become the targets of greedy and dangerous pirates. It is the law of the jungle, and predators will always seek the weakest and easiest prey. Who knows, and this is all just speculation on this particular niche of private security. (we are seeing pirates attack smaller yachts, and violently, which could be considered ‘weaker prey’)

     Also, as a cautionary tale, I think it is important to note the similar evolution of the PSC industry in today’s current war zones.  In the beginning stages, there are always problems.  I suspect as this thing grows bigger, the problems will show their ugly head and will be dealt with accordingly. Although we can be proactive out there and try to apply Jundism and the lessons learned from war zone contracting to this quickly growing maritime security market. All the skeptical eyes of the world will be on the man or woman on the boats with the guns–do well….

     Pirates will also be studying the armed security of boats out there, and planning ways of defeating it.  Because as the ‘unarmed’ prey diminishes, the hungry predators will start targeting weaker ‘armed’ prey.  So if you are a shipping company that has deemed arming your boat with one Glock pistol, and think that is sufficient for ‘arming’ the vessel, you are severely wrong.

     ‘Know yourself, know your enemy’ as Sun Tzu says. Shipping companies must strive to put in place teams on their vessels that are competent, credible and well armed, that can defeat whatever the latest evolution of pirate weaponry, tactics, and strategies are. –Matt

Pirates could face armed seafarers

By Carol Huang

February 28, 2011

The UAE Shipping Association (UAESA) has reversed course to back the use of private security guards aboard commercial vessels as the best way to combat increasingly aggressive Somali pirates.

The U-turn comes as the shipping industry worldwide reconsiders its longtime opposition to carrying weapons at sea. Over the past year, pirate presence has spread across the Indian Ocean. Ransom demands are rising, and hostages are being held captive longer.

Last week, pirates killed four American yachtsmen whom they had taken hostage.

“We don’t feel protected by the international navies, so we need to take matters into our own hands,” said Scott Jones, first vice president of the UAESA, the leading industry body in the nation. “There is still no vessel that has armed guards on board that has been taken. It seems to be the only way we can feel relatively certain,” he said.

That stance would hold for as long as the problem persisted, the organisation said in an announcement earlier this month.

“Until an international solution resolving the governance of Somalia is accomplished, the UAESA will support the stationing of trained professional armed security aboard vessels.”

Dubai port authorities have implemented “clearance procedures” to allow armed guards, it said.

Since many ports around the world ban weapons, many authorities have had to amend or clarify their policies to allow private security escorts to enter.

(more…)

Monday, February 7, 2011

Books: Maritime Sniper Manual–Precision Fire From Seaborne Platforms, By Fredrik Jonsson

     This looks like an awesome resource for those of you out there that are looking for some reading material on the subject of precision fire from boats. I have not read this book but I definitely perked up after seeing the endorsements on the thing.  Mr. Plaster was one of them, and his books have been mentioned before on this blog.  I will take his word that this book is a good resource. –Matt

Facebook Page for book here.

Buy the book via Amazon at Jundi Gear Store here.

Buy the book from Paladin Press here.

Maritime Sniper Manual

Precision Fire from Seaborne Platforms

by Fredrik C. Jonsson; foreword by Maj. John L. Plaster, USA (Ret.)

Click here to read a FREE supplement to this book written by Fredrik C. Jonsson titled Modern Piracy and Maritime Terrorism.

“This manual is a necessity for any unit attempting to combat piracy or undertake any maritime operation.”

–Chief Chris Kyle, former Navy SEAL sniper/instructor

“I strongly recommend adding this book to your training resources.”

–Sgt. Major Mark Spicer, retired British Army sniper instructor

For the professional sniper, engaging a target on the high seas is one of the most challenging assignments of all. Erratic movement introduced by waves, vessel speeds, and engine vibrations; short, sudden windows of opportunity; and a host of unique environmental factors make the shot that much more demanding for even experienced marksmen.

Now, master sniper Fredrik Jonsson has written what is destined to become the classic manual on precision fire from seaborne platforms.

(more…)

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Maritime Security: Hostage Taking At Record Levels In 2010 As Pirates Use Q-ship Strategies

     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.”

(more…)

Friday, November 12, 2010

Maritime Security: Somali Piracy Getting Worse Despite The Efforts Of Worldwide Navies

     Man, this is not a very good report card about the effectiveness of the current strategy. It also shows to me that the pirates are getting better at what they are doing, and they are also increasing their reach.

     Not to mention the scalability of the whole thing. If an operation costs $ 30,000, and a pirate has fetched millions of dollars in ransom in the past, then with each ransom, they can dramatically scale up the amount of operations. This increases the odds of success. The numbers below speak for themselves.

     Now on to the solutions. There are two things that have to happen that the world community just does not have the will to do, or the spine to promote, in order to stop this. They have to effectively deal with the problems in Somalia on land, and shipping must have a viable means to protect itself on the high seas. In my book, ‘viable means’ is defined as armed security on every boat.

     Along with those armed security professionals, must also come the legal mechanism necessary to allow this force to do what it needs to do.  Here on the blog I continue to promote how countries could provide such a legal mechanism through the granting of the Letter of Marque (LoM). I have also posted numerous legal treatments on the subject here on the blog with the hopes that folks will start thinking about the concept.

     The other area of interest for me is that as pirates become more asset rich, the possibilities of seizing their assets on the high seas or somehow taking what they stole, increases. With a LoM system right now, there is nothing of value that the pirates have because they have such low operating costs.  So the LoM would only serve as a legal framework for PSC’s to protect vessels.

     But as ship owners continue to pay ransoms and pirates begin to upgrade to more valuable ships and hardware, I could see a day where a privateer might benefit from the seizure of a prize like this.

     A privateer might also be able to benefit by retrieving that ransom money somehow. Either on the high seas right after the exchange, or if they were able to get on land and take it from the pirate. My thoughts on the matter is that if there is any mechanism at all for allowing companies to legally take from the pirates, then now you would have a competitive strategy to counter the current piracy business model. Pirates profit by taking from the weak, and privateers would profit by taking from the pirates.

     I estimate that a system such as this would eradicate piracy pretty effectively. Just think of the size and scope of such a thing? The entire world and all of it’s private naval industries, armed with licenses to take from pirates, versus a few hundred Somali pirates off the coast of Africa or where ever they want to exist. Out of that process we would see some really innovative and effective pirate hunters, and that is the kind of thing that would put the fear of god into these thugs. I would imagine that some of the best pirate hunters, would be former Somali pirates themselves. Or who knows who would rise to the top in such an environment?

     And if a value was assigned to Somali pirates in the form of bounties, then that would really create the profit motive needed to fuel such an anti-pirate industry. Call it a clash of industries or privateers versus pirates. And get this, today’s shipping companies are creating an asset rich pirate by continuing to pay these ransoms. Until then though, an LoM would probably be most effective as a legal mechanism used to help defend private shipping. –Matt

Somalia Pirates’ Success Rate Rises, Stunting East Africa Economies

By Bill Varner

Nov 2, 2010

The international naval presence off the coast of Somalia is failing to reduce the success rate of pirates whose attacks on commercial ships are stunting the economies of East Africa, the United Nations said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported to the Security Council that 37 of 164 attacks on ships operating off the coast of Somalia succeeded in the first nine months of this year. That 22.6 percent rate of successful hijackings compares with 17.1 percent, of 193 attempts, for the same period in 2009.

“Piracy in the region has had an immense impact on the economies of East Africa and also the wider world,” Ban said in his report. “International trade routes are threatened and goods in the region as well as Somalia are becoming more expensive. This is made worst by the bleak state of the global economy.”

The pirates concentrate on the Gulf of Aden, a chokepoint leading to the Suez Canal that is used by 30,000 ships a year carrying about one-tenth of world trade. Attacks have spread to the Indian Ocean, as much as 1,000 miles from shore.

The rate of successful hijackings increased even with the presence of warships from the European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization and 25 other nations including the U.S., China, India, Iran and Japan. Commercial ships are using defensive measures such as netting, wire, electric fences and fire hoses to prevent boarding.

More Sophisticated Weapons

Ban said the pirates have countered with more sophisticated weaponry and use of “action groups” consisting of a large command boat towing attack skiffs.

“I am afraid that the problem will not only be with us for a long time to come, but also has the potential to become worse unless both Somalis and the international community address its root causes,” Ban said. “There is an urgent need to combine vital sea-based and judicial counter-piracy initiatives.”

(more…)

Monday, November 8, 2010

Publications: Corsairs In The Crosshairs–A Strategic Plan To Eliminate Modern Day Piracy, By Alexandra Schwartz

Corsairs in the Crosshairs: A Strategic Plan To Eliminate Modern Day Piracy, By Alexandra Schwartz

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