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There's been some more activity by pirates off the coast of Somalia. Keith Winstanley, a Commander in the Royal Navy, suspects a terrorism connection:
While vast sums of money are involved — ransoms can exceed £500,000 — Cdre Winstanley said that official concern had been expressed over intelligence reports that little of the money filtered down to the Somali regions.“Piracy and terrorism is a difficult picture to build,” he said. “The extent of money diverted to terrorism is not known, but I don’t see evidence that the money is going into houses, schools and jobs onshore.”This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it's my understanding that piracy off Somalia declined during the tenure of the Islamic Courts Union... which we helped Ethiopia displace on the grounds that it might support terrorists. Second, despite a lot of concern about the piracy terrorism nexus, it's never really gone anywhere; there have been a few attacks in which piracy appears connected to terrorism, but only a few, and none particularly destructive. In any case, the hunt is now on for "mother ships," vessels that serve as platforms for small pirate boats on the high seas. We know that these ships exist because the small boats are operating outside of the range of coastal areas, but the mother ships have been elusive. One reason that they've been hard to catch up with, apparently, is that the current Somali government refuses to grant pursuit rights for foreign naval vessels into its waters. And this, of course, makes me wonder why we're suddenly bothering to take seriously the fiction of Somali sovereignty, among other things.On a similar topic, check out Michela Wrong on an interesting find from John Bolton's book. Apparently, the administration's decision to make Ethiopia a bulwark against Islamofascism has resulted in the undermining of efforts to mediate the Eritrea-Ethiopia border dispute. Even Bolton recognized that this was a bad idea, which is saying a lot. --Robert Farley
