Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Are the Iranians Behind the Somali Pirate Attacks?

This was the news yesterday:

An oil-laden Saudi Arabian supertanker with 25 crew members on board that was hijacked by Somali pirates is being taken to a region in the Horn of Africa used by gangs seeking ransoms for ships, the U.S. Navy said.

The hijackers boarded the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. Sirius Star about 450 nautical miles from the Somali coast on Nov. 15, the pirates’ farthest strike offshore so far, Lieutenant Nate Christensen of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet said by telephone from Bahrain.
And this report from an Arab site may demonstrate that the Iranians were behind this latest pirate attack. This report is from November 12, 2008. Six days before the Saudi vessel was seized. It's translated from Arabic, so you have to read it closely as the syntax is jumbled:
Informed sources said in the Iranian capital of Tehran,that Iran's Revolutionary Guard terrorist succeeded in the past months in train a group of Somali on the piracy in the Mediterranean from south Lebanon,for the practice in the Gulf of Aden,which is located in the Indian Ocean between Yemen and Somalia,related in the Red Sea in the north-west through strait of Bab-el-Mandeb,the sources added that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Section Somali group into two,the first group dubbed (pirates),which consists of three sections each section of the thirty people,The second group dubbed (Pirates of communication)which consists of six members (three Somalis and three Lebanese),association members are working on the transfer of information on the movement of ships coming into the Gulf of Aden from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers to the first group (pirates) according to the sources.

The sources revealed that one of the tasks of pirates obstruction of vessels carrying oil from Saudi Arabia toward the Indian Ocean,especially vector the oil that are supervised by a U.S. contractor (Henry) for striking economy the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,in addition to targeting ships loaded with weapons and food, U.S. and European nationalities as an attempt to draw the attention of America and the European Union away from the Iranian nuclear file according to the sources.

The sources said that the targeted Ukrainian weapons ship last September plan by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,for emergence of a struggle Russian-U.S in Gulf of Aden and achieve military balance in the Red Sea,for resist the U.S. military ships if hit Iran,particularly the ship was carrying nationalities from Ukraine,Russia, Latvia,the Russian Navy moved quickly to the Red Sea pretext of protecting its citizens, according to the sources.
If the date on this site is accurate, this is very convincing evidence that the Iranians are behind this latest pirate attack. Either that, or the people who posted this have a crystal ball and were able to predict an attack 6 days before it happened.

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