Somali pirates guided by London intelligence team, report says

Somali pirates guided by London intelligence team, report says

The Somali pirates attacking shipping in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean are directed to their targets by a "consultant" team in London, according to a European military intelligence document obtained by a Spanish radio station.

The document, obtained by Cadena SER radio, says the team and the pirates remain in contact by satellite telephone.

It says that pirate groups have "well-placed informers" in London who are in regular contact with control centres in Somalia where decisions on which vessels to attack are made. These London-based "consultants" help the pirates select targets, providing information on the ships' cargoes and courses.

Now it's more clear how sixteen year olds find the ships they attack.

Now that we know how sixteen year olds find these ships does not deter from the fact that they are children fighting someone else's war.
This whole bout of Somali pirating has my core at a standstill.
With the present situation in this country, Somalia, there appears to be an unending supply of childrens crusade pirates.
Nothing positive will ever come of this...ever.

Thank you for posting this news though.


Peace...

I believe they also run a number of coast watcher stations

One at Suez port and along the the shore of the red sea.
and at the Strait of Hormuz.

This would give them the knowledge of the ships and there speeds when they transit this area.

These may be Somalis or people that report just for a piece of the action.(reward)

I also believe they also monitor the marine radio net once they have the ships names to plot course and speed and next port.

I believe if the shipping companies would use encrypted data systems instead of voice radio to send there daily position reports and a code name for the ship and a encrypted latitude & longitude that the pirates would have a harder time tracking them.

And the pirates would have a hard time using GPS to be on the ships course to meet them if they did not know the course and speed because it was encrypted.

Its easy to find the information on a ship including its top speed just by looking up the ship on the internet.
en.wikipedia.org...

In at least one case the pirates have remained in contact with their London informants from the hijacked ship, according to one targeted shipping company. The pirates' information network extends to Yemen, Dubai and the Suez canal. The intelligence report is understood to have been issued to European navies. "The information that merchant ships sailing through the area volunteer to various international organisations is ending up in the pirates' hands," Cadena SER reported the report as saying. This enables the more organised pirate groups to study their targets in advance, even spending several days training teams for specific hijacks. Senior pirates then join the vessel once it has been sailed close to Somalia. Captains of attacked ships have found that pirates know everything from the layout of the vessel to its ports of call. Vessels targeted as a result of this kind of intelligence included the Greek cargo ship Titan, the Turkish merchant ship Karagol and the Spanish trawler Felipe Ruano. In each case, says the document, the pirates had full knowledge of the cargo, nationality and course of the vessel. The national flag of a ship is also taken into account when choosing a target, with British vessels being increasingly avoided, according to the report. It was not clear whether this was because pirates did not want to draw the attention of British police to their information sources in London. European countries have set up Operation Atalanta to co-ordinate their military efforts in the area.

S&F.

Missed this one. Makes sense though, doesn't it. Particularly when one remembers that the piracy traditionally provides the loot to launch territorial takeovers and private fortunes.