Rogue Planet

US circles hijacked ship with Sudan-bound weapons

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN and BARBARA SURK, Associated Press Writers

U.S. warships and helicopters on Monday surrounded a hijacked cargo ship loaded with Sudan-bound tanks and other arms to keep the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands," an American Navy spokesman said.

The shipment of 33 Russian-designed tanks, rifles and ammunition on the Ukrainian-operated Faina was headed for Sudan — not Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials, said Lt. Nathan Christensen, a deputy spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.

The pirates who seized the ship are demanding a $20 million ransom.

Christensen said an unspecified number of destroyers and cruisers have joined the San Diego-based USS destroyer Howard within a 10-mile radius of the Faina.

"The safety of the ship's crew and cargo is a paramount concern to us," Christensen said, adding additional warships and helicopters were deployed to prevent the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands."

The U.S. fears the armaments onboard the Ukrainian vessel may end up with al-Qaida-linked Islamic insurgents who have been fighting the shaky U.N.-backed Somali transitional government since late 2006.

"We maintain a vigilant watch over the ship and we will remain on station while negotiations between the pirates and the shipping company are going on," Christensen told The Associated Press.

Pirates seized the Faina's Ukrainian, Russian and Latvian crew off Somalia's lawless coast on Thursday as it headed to Kenya and anchored the vessel off Somalia's coast near the central town of Hobyo. One of the 21 crew members has died.

UN extends mandate of group monitoring Somalia arms embargo

Xinhua General News Service
July 23, 2007 Monday 3:05 PM EST

The UN Security Council decided on Monday to extended the mandate of the group it established in 2004 to monitor the arms embargo on that country for an additional six months.

In passing resolution 1766, the 15-member council condemned "flows of weapons and ammunition supplies to and through Somalia in violation of the arms embargo as a serious threat to peace and
stability in Somalia."

The council requested the expert group to continue to investigate, in coordination with relevant international agencies, violations of the weapons ban, means of transport for illicit arms and activities that generate revenues to fund weapons purchases.

It also requested the group to work closely with the council committee on the embargo to develop recommendations for additional measures to improve compliance and to identify ways in which States
in the region could be assisted to facilitate implementation of the sanctions regime.

It stressed the "obligation of all member states to comply fully with the measures imposed by resolution 733" adopted in January 1992, which established the embargo on all delivery of weapons and military
equipment to Somalia.

The arms embargo was imposed on Somalia in 1992, a year after then president Muhammad Siad Barre's regime was toppled. The country has had no functioning national government since then and has been
wracked by factional fighting.

SA-18s in Somalia?

On 15 June, the Washington Post posted an Associated Press story with a video still of a man in civilian clothes holding what appears to be an advanced SA-18 Igla man-portable air defense system (MANPADS).* To date, the only MANPADS reported to be in the arsenals of the Somali insurgents were the less sophisticated SA-7.** The video was reportedly obtained by the Associated Press from an individual associated with Shabab, the militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which controlled much of Somalia before it was routed by Ethiopian troops in December 2006. Last October, UN investigators reported that the ICU had received six weapons shipments containing several dozen shoulder-fired missiles.

Assuming that the video is authentic and that the individual holding the missile is indeed a Somali insurgent, the footage is significant for several reasons. The photographic evidence is a significant addition to the growing but largely unverifiable collection of UN and government assertions, eyewitness accounts, and suspicious plane crashes often cited as evidence of the insurgents' manpads arsenal. The October UN report, for example, provides few details about the alleged missile shipments and no hard evidence. Similarly, media reports of two planes that were allegedly shot down by insurgents in March appear to be based on initial (tentative) conclusions by individual government officials and unverified eyewitness accounts. The results of an official Belarussian government inquiry into the second incident have not been made public.

On 15 June, the Washington Post posted an Associated Press story with a video still of a man in civilian clothes holding what appears to be an advanced SA-18 Igla man-portable air defense system (MANPADS).* To date, the only MANPADS reported to be in the arsenals of the Somali insurgents were the less sophisticated SA-7.** The video was reportedly obtained by the Associated Press from an individual associated with Shabab, the militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which controlled much of Somalia before it was routed by Ethiopian troops in December 2006. Last October, UN investigators reported that the ICU had received six weapons shipments containing several dozen shoulder-fired missiles.

Assuming that the video is authentic and that the individual holding the missile is indeed a Somali insurgent, the footage is significant for several reasons. The photographic evidence is a significant addition to the growing but largely unverifiable collection of UN and government assertions, eyewitness accounts, and suspicious plane crashes often cited as evidence of the insurgents' manpads arsenal. The October UN report, for example, provides few details about the alleged missile shipments and no hard evidence. Similarly, media reports of two planes that were allegedly shot down by insurgents in March appear to be based on initial (tentative) conclusions by individual government officials and unverified eyewitness accounts. The results of an official Belarussian government inquiry into the second incident have not been made public.

The Somalia Arms Boycott Breaker

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2076015.ece

Jon Swain and Brian Johnson-Thomas

A RUSSIAN businessman has offered to arrange for eight tons of ammunition to be parachuted to a
militant organisation affiliated to Al-Qaeda in Somalia after being approached by a Sunday Times reporter posing as a middleman for the group.

The offer to hire out an aircraft and provide parachutes for the mission to Somalia, which is
under a United Nations arms embargo, demonstrates how easy it is to flout the efforts of western governments to stop illegal arms trafficking.

The journalist, posing as an intermediary for the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), contacted
Alexander Radionov, who had previously come to the attention of the UN and other international
organisations over suspicious arms flights in Africa. In an exchange of telephone calls and faxes the Russian agreed to help in return for a large fee.

The UN had already noted that his airline Pelican Air, based in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, was operating an ageing Antonov 8 freighter that had connections to Viktor Bout, the Russian arms rafficker.

Bout was described by Peter Hain, the former Foreign Office minister, as a “merchant of death” for his role in conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa.