They are armed to the teeth, ruthless and desperate, but claim to adhere to their own code of conduct. They have grown so powerful that they threaten to cut a vital trade route, and fearful merchants are crying out for naval escorts. In the seas off Somalia, it seems as if the so-called heyday of piracy at the turn of the 18th century has returned, with an estimated 1,000 pirates organised into five main fleets stalking a latter-day Barbary Coast.
High-speed plastic skiffs, AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades have replaced the galleons, flintlocks and cannons of old, and their targets are no longer ships full of Spanish gold, but oil tankers and human hostages to be ransomed for millions of American dollars.
Good article, well worth reading in entirety.
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2 comments:
Okay, I don't get it.
A couple of Q-Ships, ordinary freighters with a platoon of marines would make very short work of these losers and save the world billions. Is there no government with sufficient interest and testicular fortitude to go shoot pirates.
I think that dedicated Q-ships would be initially successful but once revealed would lose their effectiveness, thus requiring the need to change ships as older ones were avoided by the pirates.
The root cause of the piracy problem is the lack of effective Somali government, of course. The country has been in chaos for years now, a situation ripe for piracy and other forms of criminality.
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