From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Oct 02 2008 - 08:53:22 EDT
Somali Islamists tell pirates to destroy Ukrainian arms ship
5 hours ago
MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somali Islamist militants on Thursday urged pirates
holding a Ukrainian ship carrying tanks and military hardware to destroy the
cargo and the vessel if they are not paid ransom.
As US warships and other navies blockaded the MV Faina off Somalia's Indian
Ocean coast, the pirates have insisted on being paid 20 million dollars to
release the cargo and the 21-member crew.
"If they do not get the money they are demanding, we call on them to either
burn down the ship and its arms or sink it," Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, a
spokesman for the Shabab movement, told AFP in an interview.
But Robow said his movement, which is gradually gaining ground over
government troops in southern Somalia, was not linked to the pirates who
seized the Belize-flagged freighter last week as it headed for Mombasa in
Kenya.
"We have no contacts and links with the pirates and they are in the waters
for their own interests."
"It is a crime to take commercial ships but hijacking vessels that carry
arms for the enemy of Allah is a different matter," added Robow, whose
movement nearly stamped out piracy when it controlled southern Somalia last
year.
Robow claimed that the 33 Soviet-era T72 battle tanks and other military
hardware on the MV Faina belonged to Ethiopian forces, who are propping up
the embattled Somali government in the capital Mogadishu.
"We believe that the military shipment belonged to Ethiopia and was headed
to Mogadishu seaport, where it would have been unloaded with the intention
of destroying Somalia, but that never happened," he said.
Earlier in the week, the pirates said the arms were headed for Sudan. The
Ukrainian owners of the freighter and Kenyan government said the tanks were
destined for Kenya.
The US Navy has vowed to prevent the pirates from offloading the arms, but
Robow said his movement would not mind getting hold of them in a bid to
boost its campaign against soldiers from Somalia, Ethiopia and the African
Union.
"The Ukrainian ship is loaded with military hardware that is very important
for our holy war against the enemy of Allah and it would have changed the
war in Somalia if that military shipment falls in our hands," he said.
The number of pirates currently operating off the coast of Somalia, with
backing concentrated in the northern breakaway state of Puntland, is
believed to be upward of 1,000. Most of them are former coastguards.
London-based think tank Chatham House said in a new report that on piracy in
Somalia that the "total ransom payments for 2008 probably lie in the range
of 18-30 million dollars."
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