UPDATE: PIRATES DIE STRANGELY AFTER TAKING IRANIAN SHIP

We reported on this earlier. Here's a follow up:

A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.

Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.

Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”

The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.

The drama over the Iran Deyanat comes as speculation grew this week about whether the South African Navy would send a vessel to join the growing multinational force in the region.

The Iran Deyanat was sailing in those waters on August 21, past the Horn of Africa and about 80 nautical miles southeast of Yemen, when it was boarded by about 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. They were alleged members of a crime syndicate said to be based at Eyl, a small fishing village in northern Somalia.

The ship is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, a state-owned company run by the Iranian military.

According to the US Treasury Department, the IRISL regularly falsifies shipping documents to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments and operates under various covers to circumvent United Nations sanctions.

The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest, it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products” purchased by a German client.

At Eyl, the ship was secured by more pirates — about 50 on board, and another 50 on shore.

But within days those who had boarded the ship developed mysterious health trouble.

This was also confirmed by Hassan Allore Osman, minister of minerals and oil in Puntland, an autonomous region of Somalia.

MORE RABID RACISM FROM BARACK "I SEE ONE AMERICA" OBAMA'S "SPIRITUAL ADVISER: MORE ON THE OBAMA / PFLEGER RELATIONSHIP

This is from the same "sermon" where Pfleger cried about "white entitlement."



Hat tip to the Ace of Spades

And the mother of all hypocritical flashbacks. Here's Obama lecturing us about how the Christian right has hijacked faith.



Is he flippin' kidding? Dude, after what I've seen coming out of your church, don't you ever speak to me about Christianity.

And lookie here...It's all in the Chicago family...

Barack Obama's campaign manager David Axelrod is the top listed chair at Father Pfleger's Church- St. Sabina in Chicago:



And it looks like the Catholic League has had enough of Pfleger:

“Obama and Pfleger are no strangers. Indeed, when Obama was in the state senate in Illinois, he conveniently arranged for Father Pfleger’s St. Sabina’s Church to receive state monies for its social programs. Of course, the guardians of church and state separation said nothing then and they are saying nothing now. That’s because they’re all in the tank for Obama. Just as important, why is it that of all the wonderful Catholic priests in the Chicago Archdiocese, Obama long ago chose Pfleger to hang with? Truth be known, Pfleger has a very troubling history: he has welcomed the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan to preach in his church; he has hired prostitutes to worship there; he has been arrested for defacing billboards; and he once urged the crowd at an anti-gun rally to hunt down a gun store owner ‘like a rat’ and ‘snuff’ him.

h/t Gateway Pundit

Right on! Power to the people and whatnot.
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