Headline Archives

Somali pirates say released Saudi supertanker
Jan. 9, 2009.
Source:AFP
NAIROBI — Somali pirates said Friday they had freed a Saudi-owned supertanker, whose capture nearly two months ago wreaked panic in international shipping and spurred the world into tougher anti-piracy action.

The 330-metre Sirius Star, owned by the shipping arm of oil giant Saudi Aramco, was seized far off the east African coast on November 15, in what was the pirates’ most daring attack and largest catch to date.

“All our people have now left the Sirius Star. The ship is free, the crew is free,” Mohamed Said, one of the leaders of the pirate group, told AFP by telephone from the pirate lair of Harardhere.

“There were last-minute problems but now everything has been finalised.”

Sahafi Abdi Aden, speaking from the same town on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast, also said the hijacking was over.

“I am in Harardhere now and the issue of the Sirius Star was resolved peacefully. I cannot go into the details of the agreement but I can say that the ship is free,” he told AFP.

“No member of the crew or of the pirates was hurt during this hijacking.”

The amount of the ransom paid for the ship’s release was not yet known. Pirates had told AFP days after seizing the Sirius Star they wanted 25 million dollars (18 million euros) for its release but the latest reports indicated that the demand had been lowered to around 3.5 million.

The Sirius Star was manufactured in South Korea and delivered last year. It is believed to be worth around 150 million dollars and its cargo was estimated at the time of the hijacking at 100 million dollars.

The crew of the Sirius Star is made up of 25 people from Britain, Croatia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and Poland, where the ship’s captain hails from.

Pirates operating off Somalia’s coast, in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, have carried out more than 130 attacks in 2008 alone, turning the region into the world’s most dangerous waters.

The capture of the Sirius Star, which is carrying close to a fourth of top world producer Saudi Arabia’s daily output, sent shockwaves through the world’s shipping industry.

The Gulf of Aden is a key maritime trade route, where thousands of ships bottle-neck into the Red Sea before heading to the Suez canal, linking Europe to Asia.

Following the Saudi tanker’s hijacking, some companies decided to change their itineraries and send their ships on the longer but safer route around the southern tip of Africa, via the Cape of Good Hope.

With Somalia’s pirates, a rag-tag army of fishermen and former coastguards armed with RPGs, speedboats and grapnels, threatening world trade, the international community was jolted into action.

The European Union launched its first ever joint naval operation in a bid to deter pirates in the Gulf of Aden and escort UN food aid shipments to war-wracked Somalia.

The UN Security Council also adopted resolutions empowering foreign navies to tackle piracy and further plans are afoot to ensure all legal provisions are made for pirates to be arrested and prosecuted.

Yet Somalia’s modern-day buccaneers have continued to grow in number and audacity, reinvesting ransom money into better equipment and apparently benefitting from an expanding network.

The capture of the Sirius Star also raised the spectre of an environmental disaster, should the hijackers decide to turn the ship into a weapon or foreign navies attempt to release it by force.

Somali pirates still hold 16 vessels and more than 300 crew members.

Among them is the MV Faina, a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 battle tanks which was seized in September last year.

WFP Worker Killed in Somalia, Second in 3 Days
Source: VOA
By VOA News
08 January 2009

Gunmen have killed a United Nations World Food Program worker in Somalia – the second WFP staff member killed there this week.

Agency spokesman Peter Smerdon says unidentified gunmen shot and killed the aid worker Thursday as his team distributed food in the Daynile district, northwest of the capital, Mogadishu.

Smerdon says the attackers drove off in a WFP vehicle afterward.

On Tuesday, masked gunmen shot and killed another WFP food monitor at a school in southwestern Somalia.

Smerdon tells VOA it is not clear whether the killings are connected.

Earlier Thursday, a French medical charity said two of its workers who were kidnapped in Somalia in September have been freed.

Doctors of the World (Medecins du Monde) said Japanese national Keiko Akahane and Dutch citizen Wilhem Sools were released Wednesday. It did not give information about the circumstances of their release.

The two were kidnapped on September 22 near the Ethiopian-Somali border. Doctors of the World provides aid to victims of the drought gripping Ethiopia’s Ogaden (or Somali) region.

Somalia is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world for aid agencies to operate, but it is also one of the countries where their assistance is most needed.

The World Food Program says more than three million Somalis – nearly half the country’s population – are in need of humanitarian aid.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.

Japanese, Dutch aid workers released in Somalia
Source: Reuters

TOKYO, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Two aid workers from Japan and the Netherlands, kidnapped by Somali gunmen on the Ethiopian border last year, have been released, Japan’s foreign ministry and aid organisation Medecins du Monde said on Thursday.

A female Japanese doctor, Keiko Akahane, and a male aid worker from the Netherlands, Willem Sools, were abducted in September 2008 from Ethiopia’s remote eastern Ogaden region, which borders war-torn Somalia. [ID:nL7462001]

Their release comes as around 3,000 Ethiopian troops backing up Somalia’s weak transitional government withdraw, prompting clashes among factions seeking control of the country in the Horn of Africa. [ID:nL3426330]

The two were moved to a safe location after their release on Wednesday, Medecins du Monde said in a statement.

“We criticise the kidnapping, which is a despicable criminal act, and we re-emphasise that such an act cannot be justified for any reason,” Japan’s foreign minister Hirofumi Nakasone said in a statement.

Akahane is unharmed, an official at Japan’s foreign ministry said, but he did not know the status of the Dutchman. He could not comment on whether a ransom was paid.

Kidnapping of foreigners is common in Somalia, where violence and chaos prevails as a weak interim government fights Islamist insurgents and clan militia who control large areas.

Most abducted are freed unharmed, although a worker for the World Food Programme was shot dead at a school in Somalia this week. [ID:nL617207] (Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Rodney Joyce)

Somali pirates free Turkish cargo ship, ransom paid

ISTANBUL, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Somali pirates released a Turkish cargo ship hijacked in October after its owners paid a ransom, Turkey’s Anatolian news agency said on Wednesday.

The MV Yasa Neslihan was en route to China on Wednesday after pirates freed it in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia, Anatolian said, citing Fehmi Ulgener, a lawyer for the Yasa shipping company which owns the vessel.

Yasa officials had been negotiating with the ship’s captors for its release and had paid an undisclosed amount of money as ransom, Ulgener told the news agency. The 20 Turkish crew were all safe, he said.

The Marshall Island-flagged Neslihan was carrying 77,000 tonnes of iron ore from Canada to China when pirates seized the ship in the Gulf of Aden in late October.

Somali pirates seeking ransoms have hijacked some 40 ships in the last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

NATO ships in October began anti-piracy operations near Somalia, one of the world’s busiest shipping channels that connects Europe with the Middle East and Asia. (Writing by Ayla Jean Yackley; Editing by Sophie Hardach)

Islamists Recapture a Town After Heavy Fighting With Ethiopian Troops
source:all africa
Dinsor — Fierce fighting between Ethiopian troops and Al-shabaab insurgent group erupted near Dinsor town some 30 km south of Baidoa, the seat of the transitional parliament, witnesses said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday the Ethiopian troops with more military trucks attacked Dinsor district and captured the town from Al-shabaab insurgent group.

“The Ethiopian troops vacated Dinsor town early on Wednesday and they were heading to Baidoa when insurgents attacked them,” said Ali Meer, a resident.

Officials from Al-shabab told radio Shabelle they have burnt a military vehicle from the Ethiopian troops and claimed they have inflicted heavy casualties to them.

There are not any reports confirming the claim of the insurgents. Comments were not available from the Ethiopian and government officials.

Locals say the fighting was heavy and lasted for about two hours.

Ethiopian troops have been capturing towns in western Somalia from the insurgents for the past two weeks.

Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 to help defeat the Islamic Courts Union forces that ruled much of south and central Somalia.

Jan 6, Headlines
Ugandan peacekeeper killed in Somalia
Source:NewVision
A roadside bomb killed a Ugandan soldier in Somalia’s capital on Tuesday and masked gunmen murdered a man working for the United Nation’s World Food Programme in the southwest of the Horn of African nation.

The killings come as Ethiopian troops who have been propping an interim government and fighting Islamist insurgents for the past two years are pulling out of Somalia, saying their mission has been accomplished.

The withdrawal has fuelled fears of a power vacuum in a country where violence and chaos onshore have allowed piracy to flourish in the busy shipping lanes off Somalia’s coast.

More than 10,000 civilians have been killed since the insurgency started two years ago, a million Somalis have been displaced and a third of the population relies on food aid.

A Ugandan soldier died and another was wounded when a convoy of African Union peacekeepers was hit by an improvised explosive device on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Major Barigye Ba-Hoku, spokesman for the small AMISOM force, told reporters.

“Our convoy was on routine duties of mine-sweeping,” he said.

A World Food Programme food monitor, Ibrahim Hussein Duale, was killed on Tuesday near a town in the southwestern region of Gedo, the WFP and residents said.

“We call on all parties to allow us to do our job — providing food to feed the hungry at this critical time,” said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran in a statement.

WFP said that three masked gunmen shot Duale at a school, the third WFP staff member killed in Somalia since August 2008.

International interest in finding a solution to the crisis in Somalia has risen after a surge in piracy last year that earned the bandits millions of dollars in ransoms and caused alarm at shipping firms.

French forces handed over 19 more captured pirates to Somali authorities on Tuesday as international navies stepped up their efforts to stamp out the hijackings.

But the commander of the European Union naval task force in the region said increased patrols would not be enough.

“Piracy cannot be eradicated fully by naval units. We need a political solution in Somalia which has to deal with peace restoration, law and order in Somalia,” Commodore Antonios Papaioannou told Reuters in Kenya’s port of Mombasa.

Reuters

Somalia: Ethiopian Troops Deployed in a Provincial Capital
5 January 2009
Source: AllafricaGarbaharey — Ethiopian troops with more military trucks accompanied by Somali militias have reached in Garbaharey, a provincial capital of Gedo region in western Somalia, witnesses said on Monday.

Col. Barre Aden Shire, a warlord is leading the Somali militias.

Residents say other Ethiopian troops reached in Qansahdhere town in Gedo region early on Monday.

Residents started to flee from the towns in fear of the Ethiopian soldiers and left their houses behind. The Ethiopian soldiers have been keep coming and going in Somalia for the last three weeks.

Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 to rescue an embattled transitional administration and oust the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which had taken control of most of the country.

But in the past week, Ethiopia has started to wind down its military operations in Somalia.

Ethiopia’s continued presence in Somalia has been one of the main grievances expressed by the Islamist insurgents and allied clan militias.

Somalia: Four Islamist Insurgents Make Unity
5 January 2009
Source: AllAfrica
Mogadishu — Four Somali, Islamist insurgents in the Somalia capital, Mogadishu said Monday they made unity between them.

The Insurgent groups Jabhal Islamiya, Raskamboni, Anole, and a break away faction from the Islamic Courts Union announced in a press conference in Mogadishu they have united their forces and leadership.

The have welcomed mediation efforts that a group of clerics have been undertaking between the Islamist factions and called for them to mull their decisions.

There has been a power struggle between the Islamist insurgents since Ethiopia announced plans to withdraw its troops from Somalia.

The groups warned the insurgents to take over the bases that the Ethiopian troops vacate.

Ten people, mostly insurgents were killed on 29 December when hundreds of people rushed to the ex-pasta factory, a base of Ethiopian soldiers in north Mogadishu, after rumours spread that Ethiopian soldiers had vacated the premises.