A Wicked Brew Piracy and Islamism in the Horn of Africa by Tim Sullivan, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

A Wicked Brew
Piracy and Islamism in the Horn of Africa
by Tim Sullivan, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

A Wicked Brew (Full PDF Article)

The recent surge in pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia has again revealed the vulnerability of U.S. and allied interests to transnational, unconventional security threats—and demonstrated just how confounded we remain in determining the appropriate responses to these challenges. Somali piracy has now become more than simply a nuisance: the explosion in attacks has the potential to disrupt international trade (at least one major international shipping firm has announced plans to shift its transit routes), and further destabilize the volatile Horn of Africa region. The audacity of recent hijackings, combined with an uncoordinated and anemic international response, portends a growing threat. In reaction to the news that the pirates had seized the Sirius Star, a Saudi supertanker, 450 miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed the sentiments of many analysts and observers when he said that he was “stunned” by the Somali pirates’ range of operations.

A more disturbing element of the Somali piracy phenomenon is the apparent connection between the pirates and the country’s militant Islamist movement. Though it hasn’t been making the front pages, Somalia is in the throes of a protracted insurgency. The country’s primary Islamist militant group, al-Shabaab, was recently added to the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The group has emerged as the successor (and was the former militia) of Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which in the summer of 2006 came close to unseating the country’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG); the ICU was eventually defeated by the TFG with the help of the Ethiopian military.

A Wicked Brew (Full PDF Article)
http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/docs-temp/140-sullivan.pdf