Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Islamist group threatens Somali pirates

According to an article in Military.com, the pirates are now afraid, not because of all of the U.N. warships, but because of an Islamist group, which obviously does not adhere to international standards regarding prisoners.

Al Shabab announced it opposed the taking of ships owned by Muslims and promised to behead those who did.

Al Shabab "made it dead clear that any ransom that is collected they will take it; they will take away their money and kill them," Ballarin said.


There is an American woman involved in the negotiations, Michele Lynn Ballarin.


My goal is to unwind all 17 ships and all 450 people they've been holding," she said.

Ballarin said the involvement of the Somali Islamist group, Al Shabab, had helped turn the tide in her favor by putting the fear of death into the young pirates. She claimed the Islamist group had captured, tortured and killed a young male relative of one of the pirates in the last few days.


Today the pirates lowered their ransom demand for the M/V Faina down to 3 million US. They started out at 35 million, then down to 8, and now 3.

If it's true about the Islamists, I think pretty soon these pirates will be walking away, just hoping they escape with their lives.

1 comment:

kingnour said...

Al Shabab have the same ideaogy that Saudi Arabi GOV have which is salfism and Wahbism. Why they not trying to free the ship that was going to Iran. The reality is that Al Shabab trying to win the side of Saudi just to get money from them to support their UN-Somali goals in Somali. Therefore, the world need to respect our coastal line and the world need to stop dumping waste in our water. The whole world is not talking about this, but they have the ability to talk about Somali pirates since the U.N. was not able to help us solve our problems. However,The Somalis should charge those ship money when they crossing Somali water just to protect the water from waste. There are new illness been reported in Somali due of the waste. I challenged you to do research about my claim.