War at Sea, Part 4: With Somali pirates in the Land of Punt

Note: John Batchelor will be interviewing Robert Wright of the Financial Times tonight re the Somalia pirate coast and the hijacking of Saudi-owned Suezmac tanker Sirius Star (now held for ransom), re the 95 attacks on ships in the Gulf of Aden, re the shipping costs rise, re the emergency in Suez.

Interview time: 9:05 PM Pacific Time, KFI-60 AM radio: online link. Complete show schedule
*************************************
They say travel is broadening; war is even more so. All right, we're going to have to become acquainted with the Land of Punt, as the ancient Egyptians called it, or as it's known today, Puntland. According to the Christian Science Monitor:

Much of the piracy seems to be based out of the Puntland, a semiautonomous region on the northern shore of Somalia that broke away from Somalia soon after 1991. [...]

United Nations monitoring reports on arms smuggling in the Horn of Africa have pointed to evidence that pirate gangs have established relations with corrupt officials of the Puntland government. They bribe port officials to allow the pirates to use Eyl and other ports as their bases of operation, and to bring some of their captured ships in for safekeeping while the pirates negotiate ransoms with the ships' owners.

To give you some idea of why it's been child's play for the Somali pirates to take over Puntland, "The pirates actually have an income of $30m per year, $10m greater than that of Puntland as a whole," according to Wikipedia's article on Puntland.

I'd say that $30m is a conservative estimate of the profits made by the thousands of pirates operating in the region; in any event they have a government at their command. It seems the only competition for their influence-buying comes from transnational oil companies, whose explorations in Puntland are highly controversial.

So what else is new? A dirt-poor region wracked by clan and tribal rivalries, bathed in the blood of conflicts between chieftains, with foreign business looking the other way as the chiefs skims profit from organized crime.

You'd think that after maybe fifty or sixty thousand years the people in that region would say, 'You know, this chieftain model of government has outlived its day,' but no, they're the Wise Man; they know it all. We're older than you. We're in the Bible. Don't tell us what to do.

Where was I? The 21st century. Pirates. The Christian Science Monitor Q&A report on Somali piracy cited above is chock full of helpful information that set to rest some of my questions:

As I suspected, the majority of pirates are not simple fishermen:

Today's pirates are mainly fighters for Somalia's many warlord factions, who have fought each other for control of the country since the collapse of the Siad Barre government in 1991. [...]

There is also evidence that expatriate Somalis living in Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and throughout the Persian Gulf may be feeding information to the pirates about ships that have docked in those regions and may be heading toward the Gulf of Aden and other pirate-infested areas.

CSM sources find little evidence to support claims that local Islamists have begun to use piracy as a source of funds of weapons"

Certainly, Islamist groups such as Al Shabab – an insurgent group formed after the Islamic Courts Union lost control of the country last year in the wake of a US-backed invasion by Somalia's neighbor, Ethiopia – have used pirate gangs to smuggle weapons into Somalia, which is currently under international weapons sanctions. But the evidence is thin, as yet, that Islamist groups are using piracy on the high seas as a funding mechanism.

Okay; but I'm having a hard time buying this argument:

"The last thing the Islamists want to do is give an unnecessary provocation to the major powers, who might come after them in a big way," says Richard Cornwell, a senior analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Tshwane. "What experience tells us is that if the Islamists did take control of Somalia, piracy would stop overnight. They don't want warlords gaining arms and money outside of their control."

That may have been true a few years ago but the profits are now too big to assume that al Qaeda or other terror groups would forego that line of income; they'd simply take control of the gangs.

And I have read nothing to allay my concern that shipping industry reluctance to treat piracy as warfare opens the door to using pirate attacks as a cover for terrorism.

A Washington Post report on pirate insurance ends with the ridiculously upbeat observation:

Once the pirates are under control, insurance premiums will slide back to previous levels, and third-party security details won't be necessary. Unlike in the movies, the navy is still more powerful than a pirate militia.

Here is the reality, from the CSM report:

"What staggered the mind [about the Sirius Star hijacking] is that this capture was 400 nautical miles out to sea," says Mr. Cornwell. "That's far deeper water than anything we've seen before. But with a GPS they can hijack to order." Using a mother ship – often an old Russian trawler – to prowl deeper waters for their target, they can offload smaller boats to move in close and overtake the ship, and climb up with hooks and ladders, and submachine guns. [...] given the size of the territory, and the amount of shipping traffic that flows past Somalia from the Suez Canal, naval patrolling cannot guarantee the safety of commercial vessels.

"Unless you have a warship in the immediate area, and, crucially, with a helicopter, you've got no chance of stopping them," says Cornwell.

And ramifications of the piracy continue to widen, like the rings from a stone cast in a pond:

Egypt hosted a Nov. 20 emergency meeting with Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Jordan to try to forge a joint strategy against piracy, which threatens a crucial international trade route through the Suez Canal in the Red Sea – Egypt's key source of revenue.

Ominously, Iraq's defense minister warns that a premature U.S. pullout would expose Iraq to the danger of piracy in the Persian Gulf. From International Herald Tribune:

Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi says U.S. forces currently protect Iraqi ports and their hasty withdrawal would have "grave consequences" and endanger Iraq's security and sovereignty.

He told reporters Saturday that an early pullout would allow the kind of rampant piracy taking place in the Gulf of Aden to happen in the Persian Gulf. [...]

Iraq exports oil from its southern port of Basra. Iraq depends on oil for more than 90 percent of its national budget.

The CSM report explains that oil tankers are attractive targets:

"With a fully laden tanker ship, you have a fairly low free board, so it is easy to get up on board from smaller boats," says Cornwell. "Tankers are an obvious target of opportunity."

And crew are understandably reluctant to start a firefight on a ship loaded with highly flammable cargo.

The ramifications of the piracy for Somalia only add to the tragedy of that sorry collection of overlapping tribal regions:

Somalia is under international weapons sanctions, and warlord groups continue to fight both against the Ethiopian peacekeeping mission and against each other. But an influx of money is likely to mean a further influx of weapons to an already wartorn land.

"Regionally, I think the major problem is that piracy has given some groups the chance to lay their hands on money," says [Iqbal Jhazbhay, a Somali expert at the University of South Africa in Tshwane]. "There may be $30 million in ransom money received in recent years. Once they [the various armed groups] get that kind of money, they can buy a ground-to-air missile. Getting [a hold of] arms can affect the struggle for freedom in Somalia, and that affects the whole region."

And of course what affects the whole region affects us all. Life in the 21st Century.

War at Sea
Part 1, October 24
Part 2, November 18
Part 3, November 21

MOOKIE'S GUTSY MOVE: ORDERS MAHDI ARMY TO STAND DOWN FOR SIX MONTHS

10:30 PM EDT Update
Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail also has several interesting insights about the reasons behind Sadr's order. And he provides a list of the different categories of Mahdi Army groups and this surprising statement:

With the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (formerly SCIRI) and large elements of the Badr Brigades breaking away from the Iranian sphere of influence, they have a greater motivation to fight Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

* * * * * * *
9:30 PM EDT Update
Here are points I found of particular interest in Amer Moshen's take on Mookie's order (based on Amer's analysis of Thursday's Arab press):

Muqtada’s decision will have deep ramifications, given that the rank-and-file of the Mahdi Army will actually abide by the cleric’s decision. [...]

The de-centralized nature of the Mahdi Army, which became in effect a broad umbrella organization, allowed its members to act more-or-less independently, and gave many armed groups the opportunity to “affiliate” themselves with the Mahdi Army. [...]

The six-months suspension of operations may aim at creating a more effective and disciplined force out of the Mahdi Army (which has proven itself effective in street battles against rival factions, but largely useless against US forces and the Iraqi Army.)

But another reason for the halt of operations may be that the US Army has been waging a major campaign against the Sadrist militia, Muqtada may have decided to take his armed wing underground until the situation “clears.”

Also, don't miss Amer's discussion about (1) Mookie's interest in Hezbollah and (2) the Muslim Brotherhood's representative party in Iraq.
* * * * * * *
This is big news. Yet Pundita can't subscribe a sincere motive to anything Mookie does. So I doubt he's doing this for the good of the country or even Iraq's Shia as a whole, or to declare a truce with the Americans. What's he really up to?

It could be significant that Sadr's order is coming close to the (Sept 4) reconvening of Iraq's parliament. Has he cut a deal with Maliki that will allow Maliki to save face? Or is it just that Iran is trying to weed out certain elements in the Mahdi Army that don't toe the Tehran line?

Or is he making a populist announcement? It could be that the Shia caught in the middle of fighting between the Shia factions are ready to revolt.

Another angle is that the US military and Iraqi Special Forces have been coming down hard on the Mahdi Army, in particular the "rouge" elements with clearest ties to Iran. Yet with so many factions of the Mahdi Army in play, and with each faction having varying degrees of help from Iran, it's hard to tell how much control Mookie has left of his army. He's about to find out:

Just as the ongoing tensions between Iraq's two largest Shia factions appeared on the brink of spiraling into complete chaos, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has ordered his followers to halt all activities.

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, Sadr directed all his political offices to be closed for three days, and for his fighters to suspend operations until February. Sadr's order specifically called for Sadrists to stop targeting offices of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), a number of which have been attacked and burned in recent days.

One of his senior aides, Sheikh Hazim al-Araji, read the statement on Iraqi television, saying on Sadr's behalf:

“I direct the Mahdi Army to suspend all its activities for six months until it is restructured in a way that helps honour the principles for which it is formed." Araji also said that the intent of the pause was to "rehabilitate" the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions.

A Sadr aide told AFP that the suspension of activities was to include a cessation of all armed attacks against "the occupiers or any other groups," explaining, "The aim is to reorganize the militia but not to dismantle it. It is also an effort to root out the rogue elements" in the militant group.

Sadr's declaration comes after two days of fighting in Karbala between members of the Mahdi Army and elements of Hakim's Badr organization. The clashes killed an estimated four dozen and wounded hundreds, bringing an early end to the religious festival that had drawn tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims. [...]

"The coming days will be a test for Sadr. It's a bold move to publicly order his followers to stop fighting, but one which leaves him exposed. If he is unable to reign in his fighters, demonstrating a lack of discipline in their ranks, Sadr's leadership will be questioned."

State's patience with Maliki worn thin

The Washington Post, that weathervane for US State Department winds, has decided to publish an editorial by Ayad Allawi. That in itself is news, although a somewhat mixed message because the Post published the editorial on Saturday -- traditionally a dead day -- instead of the 'don't miss' Sunday editorial fest in the Outlook section.

In his op-ed Allawi sends a clear message to the Middle East's Arab states: de-Baathification is the sticking point, and overturning de-Baathification cannot move forward under Maliki's government.

Allawi notes that Maliki has stalled the passage of March legislation to reverse de-Baathification but I find this the key passage:

Iraq's security forces need to be reconstituted. Whenever possible, these reconstituted forces should absorb members of the sectarian and ethnic militias into a nonsectarian security command structure.

Translation: the insurgency will continue until 'reformed' Baathist soldiers are reabsorbed into Iraq's military.

Allawi also takes a dig at General Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy:

Empowering militias is not a sustainable solution, because it perpetuates the tensions between communities and undermines the power and authority of the state.

Well, we're fighting a war against Qaeda so we do what we must. Would we need to fight this way in Iraq if the government declared a nationwide state of emergency and enforced it? That's Allawi's recommendation, which seems out of reach while Maliki holds the reins. And in the present state of affairs, I really don't see how even the combined Iraq and US security forces could make a state of emergency stick, countrywide.

There are so many fighting factions that it's hard to tell the security militias from the insurgents, Southern separatists, and Qaeda. So, reversing de-Baathification would be a forest clearing operation. Top of the list, bring all those disgruntled guys back into 'their' military.

I recall Rajiv Chandrasekaran's account of a furious military ex-commander, booted under Bremer's de-Baathification edict, telling Rajiv that the Iraqi army had been around before Saddam Hussein; that the army was for Iraq, not any one political party.

There are a lot of spitting mad military men in Iraq who would agree, although they couldn't have expressed their feelings while Saddam was their commander-in-chief. One such Iraqi told Rajiv that if he was wondering where all the military men had gone since de-Baathification, they'd gone to join the insurgency.

There has been some side-door easing of the de-Baathification edict since then, on the simple recognition that Iraq's army couldn't function with all its experienced soldiers gone. But the reversal needs to be made official and accompanied by genuine reaching out in all sectors to Iraqis who have recanted the Baathist line.

Can that happen under Maliki? Allawi thinks not.

The big question is whether Allawi can do enough coalition-building to force a showdown with Maliki by September. I think State is hoping so.

Note re Pundita's rendering of Allawi's first name: "Iyad" is closer to the Arabic translation but, according to Wikipedia, Ayad is the Iraqi pronunciation for Iyad. Pundita will probably continue to publish whatever spelling a source provides, which makes for inconsistency. If by some miracle Allawi ends up in Iraq's top post, the spelling of his first name in the press will surely standardize.

Qaeda is now to Iraq as Soviets were to Afghanistan

From Bill Roggio's August 16 Iraq report:

Multinational Forces Iraq described the fighting, and notes the coordination between the insurgent group, the local police, and US attack helicopters:

"In an unprecedented combined action in Diyala Province, Iraqi police and citizen volunteers defeated a coordinated attack of approximately 40-60 al-Qaeda terrorists in the southern Burhitz area of Baqubah, Wednesday, and killed an estimated 21 insurgents, wounding more. As the terrorists entered the city of Burhitz, a group of concerned local citizens, called ‘Baqubah Guardians,’ and IPs stationed in Burhitz engaged the first wave of attackers, killing seven.

"At least two suicide bombers were killed before they reached their intended targets, with the bomb vests detonating prematurely. The IP notified the Provincial Joint Coordination Center and requested Coalition Force attack helicopter support after the first engagement. Attack helicopters arrived and engaged another large group of heavily armed fighters staging near the first attack site, killing or wounding an estimated 14 terrorists."

This kind of joint effort against Qaeda, which is mushrooming in Iraq, is reminiscent of the Afghan tribal leaders turning enmasse to the US for help in fighting the Soviets. This situation is bad news for both the Pasdaran and the Saudis meddling in Iraq.

Note that Pundita is being very diplomatic and saying Pasdaran instead of Tehran. Yes indeed, butter wouldn't melt in our mouth right now when it comes to talking about Iran.

If they were smart, they would recall the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan and say, "Hey, let's get known among the Iraqi tribes for helping the Americans!" But the Pasdaran are so busy waging a proxy war against the Saudis that they may not notice the trap door. Ditto from the Saudi side.

I suppose Tehran would retort that Iran was helpful to the US invasion of Afghanistan, and what they got in return was Iran designated a spoke in the axis of evil. But the name of the game is influence in Iraq after the US pulls back, so right now they're playing their cards wrong.

On a related subject, yesterday a US military Talking Head said, in commenting on the massive suicide bombings of Yezidi villages near Singar, that the US military couldn't be everywhere in Iraq.

True, but I think the military might want to strive to be everywhere that Qaeda is now fighting for turf in Iraq drug smuggling routes.

It's just Pundita's theory but I think there's enough evidence of Qaeda's drug operations to test the theory against Qaeda's recent pattern of land-clearing, shall we call it, in Iraq.

Hey, moron, what do you think war is?

Chris Allbritton's Iraq Slogger roundup of Thursday's news reports on Iraq features a summary of a new tactic by the enemy: Sniper fire at US soldiers to lure them into a booby-trapped house in search of the shooter, then blowing up the house with the troops inside.

Then Allbritton gets huffy about the US military's discussion of the new tactic, which has al Qaeda written all over it.

In a stunning example of spin, the increased deadliness of these attacks is actually a good thing, according to Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, spokesman for the American operation in northern Iraq.

"It's a clear sign that they could not get to us by other means, and that's a good sign," he said. "Obviously we're countering the improvised explosive devices, and force on force, they know that they can't fight us."

Then Allbritton launches into editorializing:

Can we please stop with all this, "they're killing more people, more efficiently because they're desperate" stuff? With so many bombs, killings, ambushes and an about-to-collapse Iraqi government, they don't seem very desperate.

What do you want Qaeda to do in Iraq, Mr Allbritton? Fall back without a whimper? The US military has already denied them their preferred strongholds. And now one of Qaeda's most effective tactics, the use of IEDs, is collapsing. So tell me, are they supposed to slink off to the hinterlands without a murmur? What do you think war is?

If you can manage for a few minutes to rip your attention from US mistakes, why don't you try something new for a change? Spend a little time studying the enemy's mistakes and spin. And why not report on the number of US and Iraqi enemy kills, wounded, and captured?

For perspective you can study Adolf Hitler's fallback tactic of ordering bombing against his own people; this on his theory that a people who couldn't win against the Allies didn't deserve to live.

I'm not asking you to be a cheerleader. I asking you to keep in mind that the situation is not about desperation. It's simply that there is nothing more dangerous than a ruthless enemy in retreat. You may trust that the US command in Iraq knows this.

War, not terrorism

Two reports on the Tuesday bridge bombing in Iraq show why the war has been so hard to follow from news accounts. Watch carefully; don't blink:

Insurgents hit a bridge north of Baghdad on Tuesday, using a suicide bomber at the wheel of an oil tanker truck to destroy the span, plunging cars and people into the canal waters below. Ten people are reported dead and six more missing.

The Thiraa Dijla bridge in Taji links Baghdad to Mosul, and was reportedly a strategic asset to the US, which relied on it for supply transport.

I took those quotes from a compilation of reports of the bridge bombing on the Iraq Slogger site. Now here's a discussion of the bridge bombing from Bill Roggio's Tuesday Iraq Report posted at the Weekly Standard:

Yesterday, Multinational Forces Iraq announced the start of two major operations --Phantom Strike and Lightning Hammer. Operation Phantom Strike “consists of simultaneous operations throughout Iraq focused on pursuing remaining AQI terrorists and Iranian-supported extremist elements,” while Operation Lightning Hammer is directed at al Qaeda in Iraq and allied insurgent groups that escaped Baqubah and are organizing north of the city in the Diyala River Valley.

These operations are the continuation of the Baghdad Security Plan and Phantom Thunder, the operations in Baghdad and the Belts that established a security presence in areas from which Iraqi and Coalition forces were absent throughout 2006.

In a response to Lightning Hammer, al Qaeda in Iraq is attempting to disrupt Coalition supply lines. A suicide bomber detonated a fuel tanker on the Thiraa Dijla Bridge in Taji. [...] The bridge, which was heavily damaged, spans a canal and serves as a vital link from Taji to Diyala province, as well as from Baghdad to Mosul. U.S. and Iraqi forces have been using Taji as a staging point.

While the full scope of Lightning Hammer, which consists of elements of two Iraqi divisions, four U.S. infantry brigades and a U.S. combat air brigade, has yet to be determined, the operations against al Qaeda and the Shia terror cells have picked up the pace over the past week.

Attacking the Iranian-Backed Shia terror cells
The announcement for Operation Phantom Strike made clear that the Iranian-backed elements of the Mahdi Army, as well as the Qods Force-created Special Groups terror cells, are major targets. Since the announcement of Phantom Strike, Iraqi and U.S. troops have hit these Iranian-backed groups especially hard in Baghdad and Najaf, the two strongholds of Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

Read more.

Robert Young Pelton, tracking the laughing skull all over the globe

"Hi Pundita,
Thanks for your kind words. Eason Jordan and I are equal partners and owners of Iraq Slogger and we are very proud of building the best 24/7 news source from Iraq.
Robert Young Pelton"

Dear Robert:
Iraq Slogger saves me tons of time, and often the site's coverage of Iraq press puts the reader a day or more ahead of news reports in the Western media. So I sure hope the site continues to be a free resource; it's invaluable for anyone following the situation in Iraq.

Yet the site must be expensive to keep up, so Pundita is happy to give a plug to what I read about Praedict's planned subscription service. I imagine the service will be a boon to anyone wanting to do business in Iraq.

I do have a request, which is that Iraq Slogger carry more of their "Life Goes On" features. I like the reports because they give hope of progress in Iraq.

Even rescue dogs get terribly depressed, if they find nothing but dead bodies in the rubble of an earthquake. So their handlers surreptitiously hide live people in the rubble for the dogs to find, as a means to help the dogs keep their spirits up during the search.

I think humans have at least as much need as dogs for signs of encouragement while investing blood and treasure in a project.

The antiwar crowd treats as a demon anyone who says anything remotely positive about the situation in Iraq. Yet Iraq stands for much else besides conflict. Iraq is all our tomorrows; it represents every problem in the developing world that developed nations put off grappling with during the 20th Century.

At the bottom of the pit is reliance on tribalism and clans as a form of government in an era of megapopulations. The numbers I quote are somewhat arbitrary but once the population gets up past 4,000, tribal government cannot work; past 40,000 the clan system of government collapses.

Then the options are very limited for those who can't do modern government. They invariably fall back on some form of mass murder to cut down the population, and keep the rest in control through a reign of terror. In one sentence, that's what we didn't deal with in the 20th Century. And that's what was going on Iraq by the time the Coalition arrived.

So it's grossly inaccurate to talk about Iraq in terms of reconstruction, in the manner of reconstructing bombed out Europe after World War II. My God, we're trying to build a functioning megasociety from the ground up. For this Herculean task, what do we have? A few thousand contractors, few of which working in concert; many of which working without an adequate knowledge base and funds.

And yet if we can't exactly call it progress, there is a lot of sincere trying going on. If we can just keep trying, and pile on more and more outside help, eventually real progress will come in Iraq. In the meantime, a sense of failure is our worst enemy. Thus, even the smallest signs of progress in Iraq, of the kind Iraq Slogger sometimes feature, translate to more attention on the country from outside.

Yet it's awfully hard to stare Iraq in the face because the country's woes underscore all the failures of central government in this era. You have long put a spotlight on such failures in your coverage of conflicts around the globe. That, too, is an invaluable service. I wish you the best in your endeavors. And come back alive, hear?