The back story to Somali piracy is pretty much as follows: the narrow waters between Yemen and Northern Somalia – The Gulf of Aden – have been the location of numerous piracy incidents – more than anywhere else in the world. Yemeni fishing boats, international cargo ships etc taking the route across the Gulf of Aden to the port of Dubai and all passages south, are easy targets, especially for returning bored Somali seamen who have just dropped off their human cargo somewhere on the Yemen shoreline. Private yachts have been targeted as well as larger vessels such as cruise liners and oil tankers. The story goes even further back to the Arab Israeli war. The Bab Al Mandab – the southern entrance to the Red Sea was managed by the Yemenis to prevent any assistance getting to Israel. It is clear that Yemen and other Arab states, are still sensitive to any Israeli influence in the waters around the Gulf of Aden. How this all connects is revealed later in this blog entry.

People wonder how such large vessels such as the Sirius Star can be hijacked. It’s quite simple. The pirates approach in fast speedboats, armed with RPGS that they threaten to fire into the ship’s bridge or bow. The pirates are allowed to board – the ships crew aren’t paid to put up a fight – and they are then in control. The pirates have been known to claim to be environmental activists

Let’s take a look at the region and see what else has been going on:

1. Pollution and over fishing. It is known that the area of the Somali coast has been used as toxic dumping ground since the 1990s and some of the waste was washed up ashore as a result of the Asian Tsunami in 2004 more here

2. Undoubtedly the Gulf of Aden is a highly strategic area. Navies from the UK, Canada, France, Russia and the USA all have a presence in and around the waters between Yemen and Somalia. more here

3. There is the ongoing crisis of human trafficking between Somalia and Yemen. Around 100 Somalis a day arrive on the Yemen coast between Mukallah and Aden having been ferried across by Somali gangs. more here

4. The area has always had strategic importance. The British occupied Aden in the middle of the 19th century and the entrance to the Red Sea was of importance in the 1973 war with Israel.

Intrigue and Conspiracy:

Back in September the MV Faina, a Ukrainian ship bearing the Belize flag, was hijacked off the coast of Somalia. Recently, this hijacking had gone off the mainstream media’s radar, even before the latest hijacking of the Sirius Star. No other hijacking has triggered more conspiracy theories that the MV Faina.

What we know: the vessel had on board a quantity of Russian tanks and artillery. Who it is for is anybody’s guess:

Weapons for Kenya ? more here

Weapons for Southern Sudan ? more here

Weapons for Yemen ? more here

Ownership of the MV Faina: one intriguing twist in the MV Faina story is the case of who owns the vessel. This report points to an Israeli with links to the Israeli government and intelligence services, as having the vessel registered in his own name.

Control and financing of the Somali pirates. Number of twists here: the BBC included in a report that the Somalians were receiving financing from Dubai based businessmen. The Yemeni President has also claimed that the Somalians were under the instruction of the Israelis as part of a strategy to have Israeli influence in the Bab Al Mandab.

Will all these individual narratives join together? Are the Somalis getting money from Dubai and being helped by the Israelis? Is the EU wanting to have greater control of the Arabian Sea and exert greater influence in the Gulf of Aden with perhaps direct control of the Aden port itself? Is Yemen supplying the Somalians with arms and were the Russian tanks heading to Yemen? Is Somalia inadvertently encouraging a trojan horse in the form of a western, multinational maritime force that will invade and occupy Somalia? a country of significant strategic importance.

What is for certain is that it will take sometime for the threads of the Somali piracy story to weave themselves into a tapestry of foreign affairs we can understand.

Technorati Tags: Somalia piracy, Mv faina, Sirius star, Ship hijacking

It cost me 120 saudi riyals which is about $30 US. It came with 100 riyals of credit.

I slipped it in my phone and it was activated immediately. This is useful for calling your local contacts and giving to people back home etc.

The SIM roams internationally too.

You will have to complete a landing card so make sure you have all the information to hand including the address of your sponsor and ideally the sponsor letter. You may have to show this to immigration before stamping.

Your bags will be scanned and possibly searched AFTER baggage reclaim. One thing to note is if you have any cds, dvds and external hard-drives in your baggage is that they maybe looked at. Double check the contents of these before you arrive for any dubious material.

One likely hiccup is that at the immigration desk, your visa may not ’show up on the system’ and you will get told to go to another immigration desk. There they will process your entry.

Transportation. There are unofficial and official taxis. You will likely get hassled as soon as you enter the arrivals area by unofficial taxi drivers.  It is my experience that there is no difference between the two…ie for a trip into Jeddah you will have to pay a fixed rate with the official metered taxi, and the unofficial taxi will also offer you fixed rate. They tend to be about the same : 60 or 70 riyals. The official taxis generally want to take people who are on Umrah (the hajj ‘lite’) so they wont care for your business if you are going to Jeddah.

Banking and ATMS. There are a few of these in the arrivals hall.