Arrrrrgh! Avast! D'oh!

Stupid stupid stupid, or desperate. Pirates off the Somali coast have become such a problem that major shippers are refusing to transit the Gulf of Aden. Tankers make easy pickings. Unless they're military tankers. It's too bad the US Navy's too humane to sink the pirates outright.

Heavily armed Somali pirates have hijacked more than 30 merchant vessels of the Horn of Africa country this year, with attacks off its coast and the Gulf of Aden almost every day.

Ordinary tankers are completely unarmed. Apparently it's cheaper to pay ransom and lose product than to keep a viable security team on board.

Intertanko, the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners, isn't too happy:

INTERTANKO’s Executive Committee meeting recently has expressed its extreme disquiet over the escalating number of violent attacks against shipping in the Gulf of Aden. They are especially concerned at the apparent failure of the Coalition naval forces to protect merchant shipping and seafarers in the vicinity of Somalia and their relative ineffectiveness in intercepting the terrorist groups involved.

The Committee noted that UN Resolution 1816 (2008) calls upon states to ‘Use, within the territorial waters of Somalia, in a manner consistent with action permitted on the high seas with respect to piracy under relevant international law, all necessary means to repress acts of piracy and armed robbery;’ and further ‘Calls upon all States, and in particular flag, port and coastal States, States of the nationality of victims and perpetrators of piracy and armed robbery, and other States with relevant jurisdiction under international law and national legislation, to cooperate in determining jurisdiction, and in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for acts of piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia, consistent with applicable international law including human rights law.’

Information Dissemination has an interesting story, bizarre and disturbing, actually, where the pirates seem to have gotten much more than they bargained for from an Iranian cargo ship.

The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died. "Yes, some of them have died. I do not know exactly how many but the information that I am getting is that some of them have died," Andrew Mwangura, Director of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, said Friday when reached by phone in Mombasa.

News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. Osman also confirmed to The Long War Journal that during the six days he negotiated with the pirates members of the syndicate had become sick and died. "That ship is unusual," he said. "It is not carrying a normal shipment."

Go read it, really.