DEALING WITH HIGH SEAS JIHADIST PIRATES
R. A. Schultz
The U. S. Navy’s 2009 Maersk Alabama rescue resulted in an increase in posturing on the part of the Somali pirates, who announced that they would specifically target American-flagged vessels and will “slaughter” American crewmembers. This should be sufficient warning, even for the most flaccid of American administrations, to adopt immediately a policy of arming merchant vessel crews, accompanied by promulgation of a doctrine of shooting-to kill personnel aboard vessels approaching within a pre-designated radius around such merchant vessel if attempted piracy is even remotely suspected. This should be adopted and promulgated worldwide immediately. Failure to do so is criminal.
Again, until fairly recently, the nations most affected by piracy have chosen a low-key response, emphasizing police work, intelligence sharing, and some maritime patrols, leaving much of the responsibility for deterring and combating pirates to individual shippers. The increasingly brazen acts of the Somali pirates necessitate a far more potent response by all concerned.
Effective criminal sanctions against the pirates are virtually impossible. As they cannot be brought to justice, justice must be delivered to them in the form of rapid, decisive, and lethal military response, preceded of course by sincere attempts at effective prevention. Negotiation with them is a sure sign of weakness and sooner or later will result in innocent fatalities.
The following excerpt from an article by Joshua E. London appearing in the April 27, 2009 issue of The Washington Times National Weekly Edition is telling:
Following the recent rescue by Navy SEALS of Capt. Richard Phillips, who was taken hostage by Muslim pirates off the coast of Somalia last week, the Justice Department is contemplating what to do with the one pirate the rescuers captured.
What is clear is that the U.S. government is treating the matter as a criminal case because officials have “found no direct ties” between East African pirates and terror groups. This will not do. These “criminals” are jihadist Muslim pirates and must be dealt with in the context of America’s larger regional and international war against Islamist terror networks. For starters, the Somali pirates do not think of themselves as pirates, but instead consider themselves to be devout Muslims protecting Somalia against the infidel West. As one pirate put it to a Reuters news agency reporter, “We are Muslims. We are marines, coast guards – not pirates.”
According to a recent report on Radio Garowe, the Puntland community radio station in northern Somalia, these Muslim pirates have been praised for “protecting the coast against the enemies of Allah” by Sheik Mukhtar Robow (“Abu Mansur”), a terrorist leader and spokesman for the radical Islamist and al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen group.
Sheik Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-‘Turki, leader of the al-Shabaab-linked Mu’askar Ras Kamboni (designated by the State Department as a terrorist group), said: “I can say the pirates are part of the mujahedeen [religious fighters], because they are in a war with Christian countries who want to misuse the Somali coast.”
According to a Reuters interview last summer with Andrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, “The entire Somali coastline is now under control of the Islamists […] According to our information, the money they make from piracy and ransoms goes to support al Shabaab activities onshore.” In other words, the actions of Muslim pirates off the coast of Somalia help support the larger jihad taking place in East Africa. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in his March 19 audiotape to the people of Somalia praised the efforts of these insurgent Somali jihadist groups, saying they are engaged in “a war between Islam and the international crusade,” and he described the Somali jihadists as “one of the important armies in the Mujahid Islamic battalion, and are the first line of defense for the Islamic world in its southwestern part.” *
Our friends, the Russians, when they’re not colluding with the Trump campaign or whatever to tell the American people the truth about their corrupt, DC Swamp-dwelling Deep State government bureaucracy, have had considerable success in dealing with jihadis, despite occasional heavy losses of civilian and military personnel. They have a reputation of being somewhat “heavy-handed” in their dealings with jihadis, but they are nevertheless effective, witness the ultimate outcome of the Beslan massacre and the Moscow Theater incident.
The tale is told of a Russian destroyer encountering a Somali pirate mother ship off the coast of Somalia. The Russians boarded the Somali vessel, and after a brief firefight, captured the entire surviving pirate crew. They brought the pirates aboard the destroyer and interrogated them for several hours and then returned them to their ship, upon which they promptly opened fire, sinking it with all aboard!
Gotta hand it to those Russkies! They have one HELL of a sense of humor!
* See Joshua E. London, “Somalia’s ‘criminals’ are jihadist Muslim pirates,” in The Washington Times National Weekly Edition, April 27, 2009, p. 32.
