Report: Somali Pirates Team Up with Houthi Terrorists to Attack Key Oil Trade Route
A report published this week suggests pirates from Somalia are once again threatening commercial shipping in the Red Sea, reportedly working with the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen to menace a trillion-dollar flow of seaborne oil.
“Somali and Houthi-linked groups are teaming up — using skiffs and new tech to strike ships with coordination not seen in a decade — while Saudi crude rerouted from the Strait of Hormuz has created a target-rich environment for them,” RTCOM Defense CEO Ido Shalev told Fox News Digital.
“There is an opportunistic alignment, with the Houthis providing geopolitical cover and advanced GPS and surveillance, and Somali groups providing the boots on the ground or skiffs on the water,” he said.
Shalev said it was a return to the “Somali model” of piracy that grew prevalent in the 1990s after the collapse of Somalia’s central government. The Somalis had two thousand miles of coastline and a huge fleet of small fishing boats, which criminals quickly realized could be employed for swarming attacks against large commercial vessels as depicted in the 2013 film Captain Phillips.
The age of Somali piracy supposedly ended when the government in Mogadishu regained control over the coastline, but two new hijackings over the past ten days have revived the pirate menace, to the great embarrassment of the Somali government. (Read more from “Report: Somali Pirates Team Up with Houthi Terrorists to Attack Key Oil Trade Route” HERE)
