Feral Jundi

Friday, January 21, 2011

Logistics: SKA Air & Logistics And Somalia

Filed under: Africa,Aviation,Industry Talk,Logistics,Somalia — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 4:29 PM

“The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…”- Sun Tzu 

     I have had the opportunity to see SKA Air and Logistics in action in Iraq as have many contractors, and these guys have been busy.  They provide a very unique capability that involves setting up logistics and air services in war zones.  They are doing it in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are also trying to do this in Somalia.

     So why am I bringing these folks up now?  Well with all of the news of Saracen International in Somalia, or Erik Prince’s supposed involvement, to me the other interesting story that everyone is missing is the logistics side of this operation. That SKA was listed along with Saracen International for contracts in Somalia. Talk about a tough contract?

    Below I have listed as many stories as I could find about SKA and their recent dealings in Somalia.  From what I can gather, they had a contract to modernize the airport in Mogadishu and to modernize and manage the seaport. (a boat with all of their stuff and tools is in an Oman port as we speak) These two key logistics hubs are absolutely vital for any kind of future development in that country.  They are also vital to any stability operations or anti-piracy operations.

     What is also interesting about this contract, as with the Saracen contract, is that there is some heart ache within the ever changing government of the TFG in Somalia as to the particulars of the contracts. If the contracts were signed under different political leadership, then all sorts of issues pop up.  Of course the corrupt aspects of this ever evolving government want to ensure they get paid or get a cut of the action.  Then there are the warlords that currently manage or have control over the airport or seaports. Then there is Al Shabab and the Islamists and their influence on the situation. All of these forces add extreme complexity to establishing a contract and the services that go with.  But that is what SKA gets when dealing with a failed state and an active war zone. Like I said, this will be a very challenging contract to fulfill.

     As for jobs, if you check out their career section they have one position available for work at the seaport in Mogadishu. No word about guard contracts. From the website, SKA used Fijians as guards in Iraq. Who knows, maybe Saracen is involved with that aspect of the contract? I would speculate though that whatever company is used for guard services, the force would be a mix of local guard forces and the standard expat management.  Hopefully someone from the company can pop up and fill in the blanks.

     On a side note, oil exploration is ramping up in Puntland. One of my readers pointed this out to me and I thought this was an interesting tie in with the anti-piracy initiatives Saracen International has signed onto in that region. Are they connected, who knows, but these oil companies do benefit from a stable and secure Somalia. –Matt

Somalia: Nation Hands Over Mogadishu Airport to Foreign Company

SKA Air & Logistics to manage Aden-Adde International airport

Somalia: SKA Air And Logistics Denies It Takes Over Mogadishu Airport

Mogadishu port dispute

 

Welcome to SKA Air & Logistics

SKA Air & Logistics is a world-class provider of aviation services and logistics. The teams that currently make up SKA have been operating in Iraq since 2003 and are now expanding the operations in Kuwait, the UAE, Afghanistan and the African Continent. Our diverse capabilities include a wide range of Aviation Services, Ground Logistics, Life Support, Fuel Supply Chain Management, Camp Construction, and Security Services. We specialize in moving people and equipment smoothly and safely in challenging environments. We pride ourselves on combining unique solutions with unrivaled service helping you achieve your goals in the most difficult environments   and our motto, “Doing Difficult Jobs in Difficult Places.” is not just a marketing slogan it is a matter of proven historical record.

Security

SKA Air & Logistics operates its own Security Force to ensure the security of all our installations, aircraft, staff and cargo. Chosen for their robustness, loyalty and unblemished record of service, the SKA Security Force is managed by former British and US military personnel and we currently operate security teams comprising of former Fijian Military staff. At the higher level we have members of senior management with extensive experience of military operations and the international security industry. Our security services include:

• Asset Protection

• Emergency & Contingency planning

• Full Logistical & Administrative Security

• Cash in Transit Services

• Aviation flight Security

• Static Guard Force

(more…)

Thursday, January 20, 2011

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

Filed under: India,Kidnap And Ransom,Maritime Security,Somalia,Strategy — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 6:28 AM

     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…)

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Year In Review: 2010 Google Analytics Report For Feral Jundi

Filed under: Year In Review — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 10:27 AM

     “Nation states no longer have a monopoly on military force, intelligence, diplomacy or anything else,” Mr. Clarridge said. “What’s going on in Somalia, where you have skilled contractors training a counter-piracy force, is an example of where the future of the military is going. No government or group of governments can get their act together to do it, but someone has to do it, and they are doing it.”- Duane Clarridge, From The Article “Private Firm Trains Somalis To Scuttle Pirates“, December 28, 2010

     Interesting year and it is nice to see all the little changes have made a huge difference.  Namely using Facebook as a means to promote the blog and using Google Reader for filtering stories. I also really liked using Google Alerts because that was bringing all sorts of good stuff into my inbox.

     I added a Scribd profile to the website and that was a really nice place to put documents in. Expect to see more interesting documents and publications to be converted into this format, and I might even get into writing some papers to put out there via Scribd.

     As you can see with the statistics below there has been a huge increase in visitors and page views this last year.  So I am very happy with this and the trend line for the blog just continues to go up and up.  Thanks to all of you out there for visiting, and I am glad you enjoy the site.

     One statistic I thought was cool was the amount of time folks spent on the blog.  Because there is so much information here a person could easily spend some time just browsing.  From the history stuff, to jobs, to information about taxes–all of it is drawing the reader in and the blog is definitely accomplishing the goal of educating the masses.  The average time on the site per visit, for the year, was about 3 minutes.  That is 3 minutes of time that the reader could have easily spent elsewhere, and usually the averages in the past were about a minute in a half. Content is king.

     The Top Ten Titles give you an excellent idea of what topics were popular for the blog.  Viktor Bout, Haiti and all the jobs for that disaster, Jax Desmond, and all my classic Funny Stuff Posters. ‘Potential’ actually draws in some hate mail from the jihadist dorks from time to time, and that makes me happy. lol

     The country and state visitor locations are no surprise to me. The key word stuff matches up with the popular titles as well.

     I guess what Google Analytics is missing is what my favorite posts or subjects were this year.  I enjoyed reading about the Saracen International stuff and the Insurance backed Private Navy.  Those are two stories I am following and it will be interesting to see how it goes for them.  The private navy story also grabbed my interest due to the potential there of using a Letter of Marque in modern times. Stay tuned there.

     The history posts are always fun for me. When I find some interesting little tidbit that deals with contractors in the past, I love getting that stuff out there. All the Koevoet material was a favorite of mine (non-contractor related). The John Coffee Hays and his Texas Rangers post was fun, as was the Soldier of Fortunes of the Mexican Revolutionary War. The young George Washington and his involvement with mercenaries during the French and Indian wars was cool too.

     Gary Faulkner popped up as the crazy bastard of the year that motivated the hell out of me.  I just pictured this guy going to Pakistan year after year, wandering the wilderness looking for Osama Bin Laden and wanting to kill him. Gary gets an ‘A’ for effort.

     Then there was Simon Mann returning to work for Obiang. This is the leader that originally imprisoned Simon and his gang for a coup attempt.  I am still trying to figure that one out.

     My best Building Snowmobiles posts were the Drone Archer and the Cyber Privateer ones. One post I continue think about from time to time is the Open Source Counter-Terrorism topic, and it is fun to think up new ways of promoting this empowerment concept. Also this was the first year I had a reader who came up with a Building Snowmobiles concept that involved economic/political theory and COIN, that he wanted to share with me. After looking at it I agreed that it was intriguing and put it up. So the innovation process here is influencing the readership out there to produce new ideas. That is awesome.

     The big ticket stories were the State Department’s army of contractors, the massive contracts that companies have received, the contractors thrown in jails around the world (wrongly or not) and the excellent support network on Facebook that helped apply the pressure on governments to do the right thing . Notice how the UAE is one of my top readers this year, and especially after the Moody case? lol

     Of course we cannot forget about Crazy Karzai and his attack on contractors in Afghanistan.  It was such a stupid episode, and really highlighted how much of a corrupt idiot he is. Luckily Karzai and company realized how unrealistic it was to ban all PSCs by December of last year.

     Let’s not forget the heroes and the dead this year.  We read about how Louis Maxwell defended his UN compound, and was later shot by Afghan police because they wanted his gun. Shane Schmidt passed away this year, and this guy defined a key jundism– ‘have the courage to do what is right’.

     Finally, the big story that needs to be mentioned from last year was the Code of Conduct signed by all the companies. I have noticed less negative attention on all the work done by contractors and companies this last year. That could be a sign that there are more pressing issues, like the economy or whatever. Or maybe we are starting to get squared away, and the governments using us are getting squared away?  Maybe.

     We will always be scrutinized out there by the media and others, and that comes with the territory. But honestly, I have seen an overall increase in the use of security contractors world wide, and I have seen an increase in the willingness to use security contractors for all types of jobs. It is a dangerous and complex world out there, and this industry will continue to be called upon to do what is required. –Matt

January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010–

307,256 people visited this site, with 436,213 page views.

 

January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009–

129,409 people visited this site, with 187,698 page views.

 

January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008–

21,427 people visited this site, with 37,841 page views.

 

Top Ten Most Popular Titles

1. Feral Jundi

2. Funny Stuff: Potential

3. Jobs Category

4. Funny Stuff: Panzerhaubitze 2000 155mm Schaldampfer!

5. Mexico: Exclusive-Los Zetas Responds To Jax Desmond, And Puts A Hit Out On Company

6. Jobs: Personal Security Detail And Medical Personnel, Haiti

7. Weapons: The VSS Vintorez Russian Sniper Rifle

8. Jobs: Static Security And Mobile Security Positions, Haiti

9. Funny Stuff: Strength

10. Gear Review: Electronic Hearing Protection-MSA Versus Peltor

 

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9. Electronic Hearing Protection Reviews

10. What Does Feral Jundi Mean?

 

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Top Ten Visitors By State In The US

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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Quotes: “Nation States No Longer Have A Monopoly On Military Force….”

Filed under: Africa,Industry Talk,Quotes,Somalia — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 10:41 AM

    This article just rehashes everything that I have posted previously about the Saracen International contract in Somalia.  What is quote worthy though is this gem below. The last sentence really cracked me up.

     Pass this one around folks, and I put this up on the Facebook Page for FJ as well. Hell, I would even say that this is the quote of the year. lol –Matt

     “Nation states no longer have a monopoly on military force, intelligence, diplomacy or anything else,” Mr. Clarridge said. “What’s going on in Somalia, where you have skilled contractors training a counter-piracy force, is an example of where the future of the military is going. No government or group of governments can get their act together to do it, but someone has to do it, and they are doing it.”- Duane Clarridge, From The Article “Private Firm Trains Somalis To Scuttle Pirates“, December 28, 2010

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Somalia: Saracen International Signs Contract With TFG For Training Anti-Terrorist Forces

Filed under: Africa,Industry Talk,Somalia — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 10:29 AM

   According to the agreement, the training which the company is providing includes anti-terrorist training program to train the State’s police and security forces in providing anti-terrorist protection services. The number of the force has not been disclosed.

     Also other types of training in the agreement include training armed body guard, chauffeur and guard training program, as well as VIP protection, special event security, aviation and maritime security and mailroom security services training program.

     Very cool and congrats to Lafras Luitingh and gang for winning this contract. It will be very interesting to see how this land based contract works out.  Could we potentially see a Somali Police force similar to that of Koevoet? I hope so, because pirates and jihadists will be quite the challenge for this police force if they plan on surviving or being effective. Also, a Koevoet style police force would be pretty cost effective if done properly.

      Hell, if this police force was allowed to seize assets from these fat cat pirates, the government could add an element of incentivized warfare to the game. They could also infuse money into the government by splitting up this prize, and help to fund further security measures. –Matt

Edit: 01/20/2011 Now it is reported that Erik Prince was one of the original investors and consultants of this contract. No confirmation yet from Prince. (I posted the article in the comments section)

“According to a Jan. 12 confidential report by the African Union, Mr. Prince “is at the top of the management chain of Saracen and provided seed money for the Saracen contract.” A Western official working in Somalia says he believes that it was Mr. Prince who first raised the idea of the Saracen contract with members of the Emirates’ ruling families, with whom he has a close relationship.”

Somalia signs training deal with private security firm

12/24/2010

MOGADISHU — Somalia’s fragile government said Friday that it had signed a deal with a private security company, Saracen International, a firm that has been criticised by the US government.

“The agreement the government engaged with Saracen International covers training security guards … and some humanitarian tasks including renovating places like hospitals and other buildings,” said information minister Abdikarin Hasan Jama.

Hasan Jama said the arrangement had no connection with company’s activities in the neighbouring breakaway region of Puntland.

The funding for the deal would come from other Muslim countries, Jama said without specifying.

Puntland contracted Saracen International to assist in its crackdown on pirates, many of whom operate from the territory’s lawless coastal regions and target shipping in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.

The US State Department earlier this month criticised the arrangement, saying it lacked transparency and could potentially violate a 1992 UN Security Council arms embargo on Somalia.

Story here.

——————————————————————

Saracen International To Train Somali Anti-Terrorist Forces, Government Announces

23 December 2010

The Somalia government disclosed it has signed an agreement with a private security company based in Beirut, Lebanon to train police and security forces.

In an exclusive interview with VOA Somali Service, Finance Minister Hussein Abdi Halane said the agreement was signed in late October between President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Lafras Luitingh Chief Operations Officer for Saracen International. Luitingh is a former.

(more…)

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