Ok, just a heads up to any of the fleets floating around out there. If Al Shabab is wanting to get to Yemen, more than likely they are going to hitch a ride with some pirates. It is the cheapest and easiest way for them to get over. Plus, Yemen is just across the way, so it would totally make sense to try and take out a few of these bums as they cross.
Further more, if there is any doubt that arming ships is not sensible, then behold this latest round of hijackings. These guys actually grabbed another chemical tanker! Believe it. So how is the strategy working out for all of these multi-million dollar ultra-highspeed Navies floating around in the GOA? It seems to me that it is severely sucking. It will really suck when one of these days, a pirate either sells a chemical tanker to Al Qaeda or Al Shabab, or they are contracted by these guys to take a ship. Then what? Does it take thousands of people killed in some terrorist attack involving a large ship filled with explosives and chemicals? Arm the ships I say! Or continue with this current strategy, and see what happens when terrorism and piracy do a waltz in the Gulf of Aden.-Matt
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Somali Rebels Pledge to Send Fighters to Aid Yemen Jihad
January 2, 2010
By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Senior leaders of the Shabab rebels promised Friday to send their fighters beyond Somalia to Yemen and wherever jihad beckoned.
In a military ceremony here, where the rebels publicly showed off hundreds of new recruits, Sheik Muktar Robow, a senior rebel official, said the group would “send fighters to Yemen to assist our brothers.”
He said that the fighters had been trained to fight the African Union peacekeeping force and the transitional federal government in Somalia but that Yemen was just across the Gulf of Aden and that “our brothers must be ready for our welcome.”