whether it is Al Qaeda or the native pirates. If they are poor, successful, able to operate with impunity, and make a good profit, then piracy is going to escalate. Hard to tell someone who is dirt poor and with a starving family to feed not to take a fat, lightly guarded tanker or two. They can call themselves whatever they like, the reasons and results are the same.

I never got the impression money was much of a problem for Al Qaeda either, their challenge would seem to be always expanding the recruitment pool. M.E. is awash in oil money, impossible to keep them from getting some. As long as we are in the M.E. bombing civilians, we seem to be handling the recruitment (and money) issue for them quite well.

I don't think they would do either, but rather assimilate or recruit current pirates, boost support and scope of operations for them, and generally take over. Al Qaeda has a deeper curriculum than the Somali Pirates, who have shown similar guts yet would surely welcome the opportunity to benefit from a relationship with such a successful organization.

one of the strengths (if you can call it that) of Al Qaeda is the purity of their religious fanaticism. I can certainly see them trying to bring that to the Somali pirates.....

....but I don't see them succeeding. The somali pirates aren't doing what they're doing for Islam. they're doing it because they see it as their best means of survival. Foreigners have taken their nation's treasure, their proxies are taking the lives of the people even now. The breaking point was when the foreigners started fishing the grounds that are seen as belonging to the Somalis since time immemorial, and what they don't take, they poison with oil and foul with bilge dumping.

Take my house, take my car, even take the clothes off my back.....but take my last means of feeding my family? Now you'll see what truly desperate men will do.

Sure, AQ might try to bring the fire of their Faith to the Somali pirates, but I don't see it going very far. The only thing I see that may come from it would be the pirates might become better armed--watch out for the occasional Exocet..... But, the strength of the Somali pirates isn't the fire of Faith---it's pure desperation. If AQ tries to force their brand of Islam on the Somali Pirates, I'm betting you'll start seeing dead AQ operatives.

Nobody likes being pushed where they don't want to go...

-5.75,-4.05
"God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time." -- Robin Williams

Depends if you mean the intelligence-linked Al Qaeda or free floating Islamic mercenary dudes. It's all part of fourth-generation warfare, lots of actors involved.

You could have some faux Al Qaeda available to attack Russian ships for the CIA or whatever - the case of that one ship the Arctic Sea freighter, 'masked raiders'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/18/arctic-sea-mystery-eight-held

Check it out, the classic site Defense and the National Interest is going offline in a few days. It's about 300 posts of really good stuff about 4th generation warfare from William Lind & others. They say you should download it (don't know why they can't keep a site hosted. sad)
http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/

--
Hongpong.com

...too long a wait to get it. It also might evoke a massive response from us and they'd be easy targets. Hostages be damned.

I tend to think the expressed concern centres on the possible rise of a strategy centred around long range attacks on global shipping. As I read the point, it isn't so much about al-Qa`eda getting into the piracy business, but the possibility that they may take developing TTPs and apply them to their own ends. Up to this point, attacks have been primarily a concern during transits through choke points, in and around harbours, and in littoral waters. Development of a deep blue capability is a potential game changer.

Bottom line, could they do it? Potentially, but these are non-trivial skills - transnational terror organizations appear to have real difficulty developing deep skills bases, tending instead to emphasize the "just enough" approach. This isn't what I'd term a real forgiving environment - if we're watching closely enough I rather expect we'll have some prior warning from the fuck ups if they try to shift to it.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Affordable, no need to take the ship, pirate morph to SCUTTLE THE SHIPS as versus taking hostages for ransom.
I makes perfect sense.

Has anyone seen any follow up on the U.S. citizen killed by the Somali pirates?

I did some research on them and was impressed at how non violent they seemed. An Indian crewman on the Iranian ship taken several months ago commented on how civilized they were to the captured sailors. There were other articles noting that the pirates were not about killing or physical brutality, just cash. So when the murder was announced, I thought what's that about?

My observation is this. There were two prior periods when the press covered the pirates, 2000 and sometime before that. It was interesting that the story was just the same as 2008/2009. Stealthy pirates drive big shippers nuts, U.S. Navy busy elsewhere, etc. Nothing was done at either point to stop it.