specialreport
dangerous
passages
Piracy off the Somali coast threatens
one of the world’s most important
shipping lanes. And the threat’s not
going away anytime soon.
A 17,000-TON CONTAINER SHIP LOADED WITH
food and relief supplies might seem an unlikely setting for high drama on the open seas. But that’s precisely what the cargo ship Maersk Alabama became
last April when four heavily armed Somali pirates
boarded the vessel using ropes and grappling hooks.
The story that unfolded over the next five days is
well known: Within hours of the attack, the crew
took back control of the vessel, but the pirates
escaped, taking the ship’s captain hostage. For four
tense days, the captain and his captors bobbed about
the Indian Ocean in an orange lifeboat, until U.S.
Navy SEAL marksmen ended the standoff and rescued the captain.
Seven months later, the incident may have faded
from the headlines, but pirate attacks along
Somalia’s coast haven’t abated. In fact, they appear
to have escalated. According to the latest quarterly
report from the International Maritime Bureau, 147
incidents were reported off the Somali coast
(including the busy Gulf of Aden) in the first nine
months of this year, compared with 63 in the same
period the previous year. And the threat is unlikely
to subside anytime soon.
Piracy, and the threat of piracy, has serious implications for maritime commerce—and for a maritime nation like the United States that depends on
oceangoing vessels to deliver everything from oil
and petroleum to low-cost Asian-made goods. And
it’s not just about the potential to snarl global supply chains and drive up costs. What’s at
stake here is nothing less than freedom of the seas.
Millions in ransom
Although piracy isn’t limited to Africa’s East Coast, the escalating activity around the Gulf
of Aden is a particular concern because it’s part of one of the world’s most vital sea lanes—
the channel connecting Asia to Europe and the United States via the Suez Canal. If a ship
