Teaming up with the juice in Addis Ababa, the U.S. invaded Somalia 2006 to restore order in a state oft branded as failing/rogue. For that the local pirates are most grateful. They're all bullish about the post-invasion market.
Excerpt From The Tapei Times
"We prefer hijacking ships to being on land because that way we can feed ourselves," pirate Abdulahi Hasan Afdhub said by satellite telephone from a hijacked Taiwanese ship in Somali waters.
"There's no other work than piracy for us in this time of anarchy in Somalia. The money we get is the only way we can survive," he said.
The Somali pirate took control, along with a group of armed hijackers, of the Taiwanese fishing vessel in the middle of last month off the Somali coast and on June 2 they killed one crew member out of frustration with failed ransom negotiations.
They have threatened to kill more crew members if a ransom is not paid soon.
The ship is one of five held by Somali pirates who are back in action, attacking with speedboats mounted with machine guns, on a scale unseen for more than a year.
Attacks all but disappeared during six months of strict Islamist rule at the end of last year, but now -- after Ethiopian-Somali troops drove out the Islamist Courts Union at the start of the year -- the pirates are back with a vengeance.
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