Pirates on weapons ship now surrounded

NY Times:

American warships on Monday surrounded an arms-laden freighter hijacked by pirates, sealing off any possible escape in a standoff near the craggy Somalia coastline.

Lt. Nathan Christensen, a Navy spokesman, said that “several destroyers and missile cruisers” had joined the American destroyer that was already following the hijacked vessel. He would not specify the number of warships or what they would do if the pirates refused to surrender.

“Our intent is for the ship not to offload any of its cargo,” he said, referring to the 33 battle tanks and large supply of grenade launchers and ammunition now in the hands of the pirates.

The ship, operated by a Ukrainian arms supplier, was hijacked Thursday in Somalia’s pirate-infested waters. The American military, among others, fears that the pirates could sell the dangerous cargo to Islamist insurgents battling Somalia’s weak government.

And the controversy over where exactly the tanks were going has heated up again.

Two Western diplomats in Nairobi, a maritime official and the pirates themselves said the arms were headed for Sudan or other neighboring countries, not Kenya, as the Kenyan government has repeatedly claimed.

One of the diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there may have been a secret arms deal in which Kenya would be a transit point for the weapons to be taken by train from the port of Mombasa and then out of the country. “I can tell you these tanks were not for Kenya,” the diplomat said.

The Kenyan government has denied this. On Monday, a government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, said: “We buy weapons all the time. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

He also characterized the pirates, in a statement, as “a ragtag terrorism unit.”

Ukrainian tanks, though, are a relative anomaly in Kenya, which has been a close ally of the United States and Britain for decades and has been equipped with Western-made weapons. Mr. Mutua acknowledged this, saying most of Kenya’s tanks were “old British tanks.”

But, he added, the Ukrainian tanks were cheaper.

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The pirates may have revealed an attempt to evade the embargo on weapons for Sudan. Whatever their original intent they are now like a dog having chased a car and caught it, they can't do much with it. The weapons ship was too big a bounty for them to swallow or be permitted to.

At some point they are going to get very tired and drop their guard. When that happens they will be fortunate to survive. It should be pointed out that there is a strong Marine contingent just north of Somalia in Djibouti along with French special forces troops.