“Our coast guard has one boat”  

The trip into Somalia gives an early taste of life on the ground here: nothing follows a schedule or a plan, only dumb luck. The airline we booked went out of business the week before our trip, so we had to hitch a ride in with a humanitarian team from Kuwait. It was, without exaggeration, the oldest plane I’ve ever flown on – an ancient turboprop piloted by a team of Ukrainians in matching sleeveless red t-shirts. We were the only plane at the airport as we arrived. But as soon as we landed, we got the royal treatment, greeted by a long convoy of gleaming SUV’s, ready to carry us and the members of Puntland’s Special Police Unit who would serve as our guards on the trip.  

Bossaso is Puntland’s largest port, and the staging ground for Puntland’s fight against piracy.  But the coast guard consists of just one working patrol boat – a 15-foot skiff which had been confiscated from pirates. The other patrol boats were tied up in various states of disrepair. The commander explained that he and his forces borrowed fishing boats when they needed them – and proudly showed off their trophies: a pile of captured pirate skiffs, a handful of Russian and Chinese RPG’s, and the long, rickety metal ladders the pirates use to board the giant cargo ships they attack. We tried to raise the ladders ourselves – on land – and couldn’t imagine how they’d do the same in a skiff on the rolling seas. Firing the RPG’s from the skiffs would be an even bigger challenge. Our security guard – a former member of the British special forces – said his unit had tried the same in training and always failed.  

It becomes clear very early here that Somalia is fighting a losing battle against piracy, despite the international force of 29 ships now patrolling the shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden just to the north. Attacks were up sharply in 2009. The head of port security told us the number of Somalis involved in piracy was 1000 and rising. To date, they had 280 in prison, all of them sentenced to death by firing squad. But it remains an irresistible profession for many here. The going rate for a successful hijacking: $50,000 per pirate, with the rest of the ransom – which can reach as high as $7 million – going to the criminal gangs which oversee the business. Somali officials are suspected of involvement. The security chief told us a local police commander was recently arrested for involvement.  

Other jobs are painfully scarce in Somalia, with the exception of one: terrorism. Al Shabaab, the home-grown Islamist terror group now affiliated with Al Qaeda, is also a strong and growing presence here. Somalia has become a magnet for jihadis from around the world, including the US. We will meet some of the members of Al Shabaab (more on that in the coming days). But for now, consider this fact: the pirates and the terrorists are linked, with Al Shabaab charging the pirates a ‘tax ‘of $100,000 on each hijacking. It is an enormous source of funding – and another reason US officials consider Somalia, along with Yemen, a rising terror threat.

SOURCE: ABC NEWS