Word: ali
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...mounted with high-powered engines launched from "motherships" disguised as fishing boats, the buccaneers who prowl the waters off the Somali coast pick their prey from the passing shipping traffic like lions selecting a kill: the slower and more defenseless, the better. "We hijack every ship we can," Sugule Ali, a pirate captain, told TIME by satellite phone this week...
...Faina fitted the bill. Slow, low-sided and sailing under a Belize flag, the freighter seemed no different from any of the 60 other ships attacked by pirates this year in the same waters. And Ali and his men had no reason to believe the outcome of this hijacking would be any different. In a well-established routine, a vessel is typically held for a few days or weeks while the pirates negotiate a ransom with the ship's owners, usually netting between $500,000 and $2 million. Then ship and crew are then released unharmed. This year, according...
...Faina's cargo surprised Ali and his men and sent alarm bells ringing around the world - the unprepossessing freighter was carrying 33 Russian T-72 tanks and a host of other armaments that had originated in Ukraine. By the end of this week, U.S. frigates and a Russian warship were bearing down on the pirates, the European Union had decided to launch a multinational antipiracy patrol, and Ukraine and Kenya found themselves embroiled in an arms scandal...
...Ali and his men, piracy is a business: realizing the value of the Faina's cargo, he demanded $35 million, although that figure was later reduced to $20 million. But he likes to cast it as also a protest. "We were forced into this work," he argues, speaking from the Faina's bridge at anchor off the village of Hobyo. "We were fishermen. I used to work in the sea every day. But ships from other countries fish our coasts illegally, destroy our nets and fire on whoever approaches them. We were refused the right to fish. They even dump...
...That legislation has spelled trouble for Ali and his cohorts. Fueled by fears that the cache of weapons could make its way to al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, the U.S. sent warships to encircle the anchored vessel as an international fleet hurried to join them. In his interview with the Times, Ali seemed cheerfully fatalistic about the prospect of tangling with the world's naval superpowers: "We know you only die once." Rumors flew that three pirates had already perished during a shootout stemming from a disagreement over whether to surrender, but the pirate spokesman dismissed the claim. He said...