Hijacking pirates exploit regional chaos to return to seas off Somalia

The scourge of Somali piracy targeting cargo ships and smaller dhows off the Horn of Africa has returned to levels not seen in a decade, driven by a convergence of factors including disruptions to the shipping industry caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran and a resurgence of political instability in Somalia.Since late April there have been eight hijackings by Somali pirates, including two within the space of a fortnight in August: one targeting an oil tanker with ties to Iran, the other a Cameroon-flagged vessel, the Lutuf, carrying military equipment for Turkey.Over a seven-year period from 2005 there were more than 1,000 attacks on vessels in the waters off Somalia, which has Africa’s longest coastline. Thousands of crew members were taken hostage, netting $400m (£296m) in ransom payments for the piracy network’s financiers, the low-level “foot-soldier” pirates and the communities who provided them with goods and services. The attacks only petered out after a multinational anti-piracy force was deployed.Armed Somali pirates guard the beach in Hobyo district, 540km north-east of Mogadishu, in 2008. Photograph: Badri Media/epa/CorbisThe hijacking of the Lutuf was the most high-profile of the recent incidents. Turkey has been expanding its influence in Somalia after an agreement signed in 2024 to build up its navy, and the Lutuf’s release two weeks after its capture involved a joint Turkish-Somali operation that resulted in the destruction of four pirate vessels.However, local officials including Mohamed Mubarak, the head of the Puntland security coordination office, have said that a $2.5m (£1.85m) ransom was also paid, prompting warnings that such payments risked encouraging similar incidents.Members of Somalia Puntland maritime police force on duty in 2023. Photograph: Daniel Irungu/EPAIn a comment for the Center for Maritime Security in July, Matthew Reisener, the thinktank’s national security adviser, warned that naval campaigns by Iran in the strait of Hormuz and Iran’s Houthi proxies in the Red Sea – launched in response to the US-Israel war on Iran – are allowing regional piracy “to once again thrive”.He wrote: “Not only have the global navies that once combatted piracy off the Horn of Africa diverted their resources to counter the threats against ships in these critical waterways, but these conflicts have also drawn maritime traffic closer to Somalia’s coastline, creating openings for opportunistic pirates to target commercial ships.”According to Reisener, about 70% of maritime traffic that passed through the Red Sea prior to the Houthis’ targeting of ships there is now being rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.A report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in May reached a similar conclusion: “The recent deterioration of maritime security followed a prolonged period of relative calm in the waters off the Somali coast, which resulted in the redeployment of international anti-piracy fleets and the relaxation of commercial risk-management practices. These factors – alongside the distraction posed by Houthi attacks in the Red Sea – have converged to create an opening that Somali pirates have been quick to exploit.”Analysts also note that rising oil prices driven by the war have made oil cargoes a more valuable target.Among the least developed countries in the world, Somalia has endured conflict and clan battles with no strong central government since the autocratic ruler Mohamed Siad Barre fell in 1991. Insufficient patrol vessels and an inability to regularly pay salaries to those involved in coastal patrols are among the reasons why Somalia has long-struggled to secure its coastline.Yemenis protest against Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. Experts warn that these attacks in response to the US-Israel war on Iran are allowing piracy to thrive. Photograph: Anadolu/GettyPiracy has historically thrived during periods of increasing instability and political, factional and regional competition. Observers say the recent rise in incidents has been exacerbated by a domestic and international focus on arms smuggling to Yemen by networks acting on behalf of Iran. Analysts suggest some of these networks have become increasingly associated with Somalia’s Islamist al-Shabaab group as it once again expands its territorial control in central and southern Somalia and seeks to build ties with the Houthis in Yemen.Local officials interviewed by the Guardian described how in the recent spate of incidents, pirate groups have been using vessels they had already seized to attack and capture other vessels.According to the officials, the Lutuf was approached as it sailed three nautical miles from Somali shores near the fishing town of Maraya by a previously hijacked cement carrier, the MV Sward, which had been repurposed as a pirate mothership. Eight gunmen from the Sward then boarded the Lutuf and were able to overpower the ship’s armed guards.The MV Sward, a cement carrier hijacked in April, was repurposed as a pirate mothership. Photograph: EU Naval Force Operation AtalantaOfficials say the recent attacks have also been marked by increased technological sophistication on the part of pirate groups, including the use of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service to facilitate the tracking of potential targets and for high-speed communications between pirates.That reflects what Lloyd’s List has described as an increasingly “more capable and adaptive Somali piracy threat” that is already exposing vulnerabilities in carriers’ existing anti-piracy security measures.In the weeks since the Lutuf ransom was paid, residents of Galkayo, a commercial hub in the north-central Mudug region, said money had started circulating through the local economy to a much greater degree than before. Consumption of the stimulant khat has reportedly increased, and greater numbers of expensive sports utility vehicles have been seen on the roads.Residents of Galkayo, Somalia, said money has begun to circulate in the local economy since the hijacking of the Lutuf. Photograph: Gary Calton/The ObserverDuring the previous piracy boom, increased flows of money through the economies of coastal communities and places like Galkayo had profound societal impacts, including an expansion of alcohol and drug use and prostitution.Perhaps foreshadowing the regime of tougher measures that may be required to counter the growing piracy threat, the Lutuf was only released after a series of drone attacks on the pirate groups involved in the seizure, both at sea and on land. The dead included nine armed men who were killed by a missile fired from a Turkish drone as they prepared boats to join the gunmen onboard the Lutuf.The question now is whether the growing threat can be countered.Writing in The Conversation in May, the UK-based academics Anja Shortland and Federico Varese, who studied Somalia’s piracy problem in 2014, were uncertain whether there was an international appetite or the capacity for the same sort of anti-piracy force deployed more than a decade ago.Somali pirates apprehended by French soldiers in the Gulf of Aden in 2009. Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features“What happens next will depend on how the current hijacks proceed. Pirates rely on ransoms for reinvestment and to attract young men into their no-win-no-fee contracts. Fast and generous payments … may free the captive ships. But they will lead to escalating risks for everyone else.“No state or alliance also currently has the will or capacity to run a naval mission on the scale seen in 2011 and 2012, when navies worldwide spent more than US$1bn annually on counter-piracy operations off Somalia.“Although piracy manifests as a sea-based problem, it can only be solved on land.”