z had me going there from over at the Big Blog... thinking they had reported a Russian frigate hijacked by the Somali pirates, and I was all, no-way-Jose over it, and it really was about a very badly-worded caption on a picture. First the Iranian cargo ship was taken -- which is being hyped as containing illicit deadly stuff meant for terrorists -- and then the Ukrainian ship bearing licit deadly stuff was taken, and the Russian frigate is on its way, and one of our ships is standing by to make sure the pirates don't offload any tanks or munitions from the Ukrainian ship while they're waiting for the Russians to arrive and sort it out... but really we're there to see if we can't turn it into a reason to nuke Iran....
That all makes sense. Right?
So but to start out with I thought I was reading that the Russian frigate had been taken on top of everything. The following piece came with a picture of the Russian frigate with the caption "EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: The Russian frigate Neustrashimy, which was sent to the coast of Somalia this week after a Ukrainian ship carrying arms, including 33 T-72 tanks, was also hijacked by Somali pirates. Picture: AP" under it, and that's what got everyone new to the issue flipping about the Russian frigate being taken. The page is taking about a month to load, and I don't know if it ever will again, so:
Pirates die strangely after taking Iranian ship
Andrew Donaldson | Published: Sep 28, 2008
A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.
Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.
Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”
The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.
The drama over the Iran Deyanat comes as speculation grew this week about whether the South African Navy would send a vessel to join the growing multinational force in the region.
A naval spokesman, Lieutenant-Commander Greyling van den Berg, told the Sunday Times that the navy had not been ordered by the government to become involved in “the Somali pirate issue”.
About 22000 ships a year pass through the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden, where regional instability and “no-questions-asked” ransom payments have led to a dramatic rise in attacks on vessels by heavily armed Somali raiders in speedboats.
The Iran Deyanat was sailing in those waters on August 21, past the Horn of Africa and about 80 nautical miles southeast of Yemen, when it was boarded by about 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. They were alleged members of a crime syndicate said to be based at Eyl, a small fishing village in northern Somalia.
The ship is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, a state-owned company run by the Iranian military.
According to the US Treasury Department, the IRISL regularly falsifies shipping documents to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments and operates under various covers to circumvent United Nations sanctions.
The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest, it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products” purchased by a German client.
At Eyl, the ship was secured by more pirates — about 50 on board, and another 50 on shore.
But within days those who had boarded the ship developed mysterious health trouble.
This was also confirmed by Hassan Allore Osman, minister of minerals and oil in Puntland, an autonomous region of Somalia.
He headed a delegation sent to Eyl when news of the toxic cargo and illnesses surfaced.
He told one news publication, The Long War Journal, that during the six days he had negotiated with the pirates, a number of them had become sick and died.
“That ship is unusual,” he was quoted as saying. “It is not carrying a normal shipment.”
The pirates did reveal that they had tried to inspect the ship’s cargo containers when some of them fell sick — but the containers were locked.
Osman’s delegation spoke to the ship’s captain and its engineer by cellphone, demanding to know more about the cargo.
Initially it was claimed the cargo contained “crude oil”; later it was said to be “minerals”.
And Mwangura has added: “Our sources say it contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals.”
But IRISL has denied that — and threatened legal action against Mwangura. The company has reportedly paid the pirates 200000 — the first of several “ransom instalments”, but that, too, has been denied.
And while looking to confirm this outlandish idea of the Russian military being skunked by Somali pirates, I came up with this freakish bit with a really strategically missed space between the words "guards" and "ship", which you will admit is completely outrageous:
AP | Monday, 29 September 2008
A US Navy destroyer was stationed off Somalia yesterday to ensure that Somali pirates did not remove tanks, ammunition and other heavy weapons from a hijacked Ukrainian cargo ship.
The pirates have demanded $35m (£19m) to release the cargo ship Faina and its 21 crew, warning of dire consequences if military action is taken to try to free the vessel. The ship was seized on Thursday as it sailed to Kenya with 33 Russian-built T-72 tanks, ammunition and spare parts ordered by the Kenyan government.
The Americans appeared to be keeping an eye on the Faina until the Russian missile frigate Neustrashimy reached the area. A spokesman for the US 5th Fleet said the San Diego-based USS Howard had the Faina in sight yesterday but "cannot hear what is going on" on board.
He said that the Navy had tried to communicate with the Faina's crew but so far had not had a response. The BBC claimed to have spoken to the pirates by satellite phone and been told that one of the crew members had died of an illness.
What a flippin' nerve wrecker. I thought again I'd been hit by that bread truck, lying in a nightmare-filled coma somewhere... which, actually, I'm still heavily suspicious that is at the root of all of this... but, well....
But then there was:
By Mohamed Olad Hassan
Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia — As a heavily armed U.S. destroyer patrolled nearby and planes flew overhead Sunday, a Somali pirate spokesman said his group was demanding a $20 million ransom to release a cargo ship loaded with Russian tanks.
The spokesman warned that the pirates would fight to the death if any country tried military action to regain the ship, and a man who said he was the ship's captain reported that one crew member had died.
Pirates seized the Ukrainian-operated ship Faina off the coast of Somalia on Thursday as it headed to Kenya carrying 33 Russian-built T-72 tanks and a substantial amount of ammunition and spare parts. The ordnance had been ordered by the Kenyan government.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Howard was stationed off the Somali coast on Sunday, making sure that pirates did not remove the tanks, ammunition and other heavy weapons from the ship, which was anchored off the coast.
A spokesman for the U.S. 5th fleet said the Navy remained "deeply concerned" over the fate of the ship's 21-member crew and cargo.
In a rare gesture of cooperation, the Americans appeared to be keeping an eye on the Faina until a Russian missile frigate reaches the area. The Neustrashimy, or Intrepid, was still in the Atlantic on Sunday, the Russian navy reported.
A man who said he was the captain of the ship and who identified himself as Viktor Nikolsky said that a Russian crew member died Sunday because of hypertension.
Which would definitely indicate that no Russian frigate got hijacked by Pirates because it hadn't even arrived on the scene yet... and eventually led me to figure out what the heck they were talking about and it wasn't about no Russian frigate or US guard ship being taken by a band of crazed Somali pirates.
THE MORAL OF THIS STORY IS THAT EVEN SLOW READERS READ TOO FAST ON THE INTERTUBES.
Now [midnight thirty] I'm going out for my smoke. Sheesh.
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