Pirates attacked a record 17 ships in the Gulf of Aden in the first two weeks of September compared to just 10 in the entire year of 2007

throwback to 17th century days of Spanish galleons, Barbary pirates and avenging royal navies, pirates attacked a record 17 ships in the Gulf of Aden in the first two weeks of September compared to just 10 in the entire year of 2007, according to the Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Center. "This is the highest number of piracy attacks we have seen in the past five years," said Cyrus Mody, manager of the London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB) which runs the Piracy Reporting Center, the word's nodal anti-pirate organization. Mody estimates that around 1,000 active pirates in the region have increased attacks on shipping after shifting base from theeast coast of Africa to the Gulf of Aden, which yachties call "pirates' alley". The concern reached crisis level on September 18, with leading international shipping associations such as BIMCO, Intercargo and the International Transport Workers' Federation calling for urgent United Nations action, saying the situation is "in danger of spiralling completely and irretrievably out of control".
Shockingly for governments, pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia and Yemen are currently holding 11 ships and nearly 250 crew members hostage. Pirates are demanding and often getting ransoms from US$2 million to $9 million.
Replacing the Malacca Strait as the world's deadliest waters, the Gulf of Aden is spinning its own 21st century pirate story: multi-billion-dollar oil tankers, pirates defying navy patrols to capture ships and crews for fabulous ransoms and even two flourishing pirate towns. An Indian sailor, Maria Vijayan, who was held captive by Somalian pirates for 174 days, told Asia Times Online of the existence of a pirate town called Harardheere, 400 kilometers north of the capital Mogadishu.
Harardheere is a stronghold for hundreds of pirates and their families, and Cyrus Mody of the International Maritime Bureau confirmed its existence.
The other more well known modern pirate town is the port of Eyl in the Somalian region of Puntland, a modern day version of Tortuga, the 18th century Haitian island pirate town made more famous in the movie trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean .
Eyl is an infamous nest for Somali pirate-captured ships as well as a supporting industry feeding off an estimated $30 million in ransom booty that Gulf of Aden pirates bagged in 2007, a staggering indication of the extent of piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Vijayan was chief officer of one of two South Korean ships Mavuno I and Mavuno II that Somali pirates captured off Mogadishu at around 2.30 am on May 15, 2007. The pirates were heavily armed, on a high speed white vessel and began firing before boarding the ships. "We came to know of this pirate town because three South Korean crew members were taken there and imprisoned for 17 days," says Vijayan while narrating details of his harrowing nearly six-month captivity. "The pirates extracted $2 million dollars over a period of time from my company," says Vijayan, now rebuilding his life from his residence in Kanyakumari, in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The United States Navy finally rescued Vijayan and his badly traumatized crew on November 4 2007, after keeping continuous surveillance on the pirate-captured ships. The Indian government, Vijayan said, did nothing. The Somali pirates doing the actual daily dirty work are simple, poorly paid unemployed youth recruited from the interiors of civil war-torn Somalia, according to Vijayan. "I think they must be barely paid $20 or $30 for a piracy operation," he laughed, compared to the $2 million or more ransoms the pirate chief masterminds extort.
"The pirates are well-organized in groups of 15 to 20," says Vijayan, who did not rule out involvement of sections of the Somali army or warlords now tearing the country apart. How strongly the Gulf of Aden pirates have entrenched themselves became clear when, despite an American navy presence and successful French commando assault on September 15, Aden pirates the next day brazenly seized a Hong Kong and a South Korean flag-bearing ship. "The world cannot accept this ... today, these are no longer isolated cases but a genuine industry of crime," French President Nicolas Sarkozy had said a day earlier on September 15, after the French navy parachuted commandos to rescue an elderly French-Polynesian couple, Jean-Yves and Bernadette Delanne from Somali pirates. The world pays a high price to pirates terrorizing the Gulf of Aden. "3.3 million barrels of crude oil - nearly 4% of daily global demand - daily pass through the Gulf of Aden waters that is also a crucial access route for cargo ships from Asia to Europe and the US, " said Manoj Joy of the Chennai-based Sailors Helpline. "So going by these figures, the Gulf of Aden is becoming a gold mine for the pirates." A gold mine it is. Aden pirates freed a Spanish fishing boat after receiving a $1.2 million ransom this April. A German piracy victim Niels Stolberg told the weekly Der Spiegel that pirates had seized his ship 'BBC Trinidad' and its crew for three weeks, threatened to blow up the $23 million ship, demanded a ransom of $8 million and finally settled for $2 million. "The governments have to act very fast to save hostages," says Vijayan of the estimated 250 sailors of many countries now suffering hostage trauma. "Having experienced what it is to be held captive by pirates, I know what the victims must be going through." He says the Indian government and navy must get involved as thousands of Indian workers sail the Gulf waters. Indian seafarers are particularly aggrieved, complaining of government inaction even though Indian seamen are among the worst-hit piracy victims. While Vijayan gratefully acknowledges American and South Korean governments for rescuing him and his crew, he says that no Indian government official has met him, and more astonishingly, no one from the Indian Navy has interviewed him. Yet the Indian Navy, sans homework, has sought government permission to intervene after 18 Indian sailors were among the crew of 22 of the MT Stolt Valor, a chemical tanker carrying a Hong Kong flag that Aden pirates hijacked on September 16. Unconfirmed reports say the pirates are demanding a $9 million ransom. The Indian Navy finally announced plans on September 20 to patrol the Gulf of Aden, along with navy forces from other countries. "India is one of the largest suppliers of manpower to the global shipping industry and it is of paramount importance for the government to make sure their lives are safe," said Manoj Joy, of the Chennai-based Sailor's Helpline. "The seafarers are contributing in a big way to the Indian economy." Other Indian sailor associations are threatening to strike if the government does not effectively act soon. War-torn Somalia has allowed foreign warships to enter its territorial waters to tackle piracy, while the UN Security Council has passed a resolution letting naval vessels enter Somalia's territorial waters and repress piracy "by all necessary means". Successful multi-million dollar ransom demands are multiplying "copycat" pirate attacks, say International Maritime Bureau officials, with pirates running amuck in Somalia, which has had no functioning central government since former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was booted out in 1991.
Since trigger-happy, heavily-armed Gulf of Aden pirates also fire rocket-propelled grenades, fears increase of an oil tanker being blown up and throwing the crucial global trade waterway into a oil-spill nightmare. An IMB official said it's a "miracle" that no oil tanker has been hit with rocket fire. The IMB website has published two photographs of three white-painted pirate "mother ships", said to be Russian-made trawlers and a tugboat that pirate gangs use as base to launch fast, inflatable boats for attacking victim ships. Seafarer associations globally also say that ship owners are not doing enough to protect their vessels and crew, and must invest in better security, a few thousand dollars to protect lives and avoid paying million dollar ransoms. The IMB recommends that ship owners use latest security systems such "Secure-Ship", a non-lethal, electrical fence to repel uninvited guests visiting with rocket launchers. Other Inmarsat and other satellite systems-based anti-piracy gizmos include the ShipLoc, which lets shipping companies easily track their vessels, as well as enabling an attacked crew to send a SOS. Though some governments are waking up to the Gulf of Aden piracy threat, there is little coordinated, sustained global action. Yemen and Oman, two Gulf of Aden countries, are discussing establishing a regional center to combat piracy. European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels this month created a crisis group to deal with future hijackings. Spain announced that it is sending a P-3 Orion military aircraft to patrol the waters off the coast of Somalia, while the US Navy and France have made clear they will not be handling pirates with kid gloves.
Cyrus Mody of the IMB says some governments unfortunately try to hide the piracy problem, partly to avoid fears of safety about their ports, fears that could affect trade interests, aid, grants or concessions they get.
"Either governments may accept piracy as a problem and deal with it," says Mody, "or they may try to suppress reports." In which case 21st century pirates have not to much to worry about, while the rest of the world increasingly does.