Somali Pirate Jihad
Following the successful rescue of Captain Phillips by U.S Navy Seals earlier this week, the Somali pirates have vowed revenge, and appear to be stepping up attacks on U.S flagged ships.CNN reports pirates have already opened fire at the Liberty Sun. (H/T) Jules Crittenden :
“The pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at the vessel, which sustained damage,” said a statement from New York-based Liberty Maritime Corporation, which owns the vessel.
The ship was carrying U.S. food aid for African nations, the statement said.
The pirates never made it onto the ship and the vessel is now being escorted by a coalition ship, still bound for Mombasa, officials said.
The attacks highlight something important which is that ultimately, the piracy is not about the money, which is indeed lucrative. As Robert Spencer notes in Human Events today:
In August 2008, when the pirates became especially active off the Horn of Africa, Andrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, declared that Al-Shabaab, a group of jihadists in Somalia, use piracy to fund their jihad: “According to our information, the money they make from piracy and ransoms goes to support al-Shabaab activities onshore.”
Al-Shabaab of course is the Al-Qaeda linked Somali Islamist terrorists which has been recruiting American Somalis from Minneapolis and else where to fight in their effort to extend Shariah law to that country after their predecessor the Islamic Courts Union, was ousted from Moghadishu by Ethopian and Somali troops. Spencer rightly points out, that while dangerous in its own right, the matter of piracy in the Gulf of Aden should not be viewed as seperate from the wider Jihad against the West.
UPDATE: From the Times Online, “Somali Attack on US vessel was ‘act of revenge not piracy (h/t Jawa Report):
“This attack was the first against our prime target,” Abdi Garad, a pirate commander, said today. “We intended to destroy this American-flagged ship and the crew on board but unfortunately they narrowly escaped us.
“The aim of this attack was totally different. We were not after a ransom. We also assigned a team with special equipment to chase and destroy any ship flying the American flag in retaliation for the brutal killing of our friends.”