Hijacking pirates exploit regional chaos to return to seas off Somalia

The Indian Navy recaptures the MV Ruen, a Maltese ship, from Somali pirates off the Indian coast in March 2024, after a three-month hijacking. Photograph: Indian Navy X/AFP/AFP/ View image in fullscreen The Indian Navy recaptures the MV Ruen, a Maltese ship, from Somali pirates off the Indian coast in March 2024, after a three-month hijacking. Photograph: Indian Navy X/AFP/AFP/ Hijacking pirates exploit regional chaos to return to seas off Somalia US-Israel war on Iran and political instability in Somalia lead to pirates targeting cargo ships off Horn of Africa The scourge of Somali piracy targeting cargo ships and smaller dhows off the Horn of Africa has returned to levels not seen in a decade, driven by a convergence of factors including disruptions to the shipping industry caused -Israeli war against Iran and a resurgence of political instability in Somalia. Since late April there have been eight hijackings , including two within the space of a fortnight in August: one targeting an oil tanker with ties to Iran, the other a Cameroon-flagged vessel, the Lutuf, carrying military equipment for Turkey. Over a seven-year period from 2005 there were more than 1,000 attacks on vessels in the waters off Somalia, which has Africa’s longest coastline. Thousands of crew members were taken hostage, netting $400m (£296m) in ransom payments for the piracy network’s financiers, the low-level “foot-soldier” pirates and the communities who provided them with goods and services. The attacks only petered out after a multinational anti-piracy force was deployed. View image in fullscreen Armed Somali pirates guard the beach in Hobyo district, 540km north-east of Mogadishu, in 2008. Photograph: Badri Media/epa/CorbisThe hijacking of the Lutuf was the most high-profile of the recent incidents. Turkey has been expanding its influence in Somalia after an agreement signed in 2024 to build up its navy, and the Lutuf’s release two weeks after its capture involved a joint Turkish-Somali operation that resulted in the destruction of four pirate vessels. However, local officials including Mohamed Mubarak, the head of the Puntland security coordination office, have said that a $2.5m (£1.85m) ransom was also paid, prompting warnings that such payments risked encouraging similar incidents. View image in fullscreen Members of Somalia Puntland maritime police force on duty in 2023. Photograph: Daniel Irungu/EPAIn a comment for the Center for Maritime Security in July, Matthew Reisener, the thinktank’s national security adviser, warned that naval campaigns ’s Houthi proxies in the Red Sea – launched in response to the US-Israel war on Iran – are allowing regional piracy “to once again thrive”.