A tense standoff is underway in northeastern Somalia between pirates, Somali authorities, and Iran over a suspicious merchant vessel and its mysterious cargo. Hijacked late last month in the Gulf of Aden, the MV Iran Deyanat remains moored offshore in Somali waters and inaccessible for inspection. Its declared cargo consists of minerals and industrial products, however, Somali and regional officials directly involved in the negotiations over the ship and who spoke to The Long War Journal are convinced that it was heading to Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia's Islamist insurgents.
This article pretty much cuts and pastes this reporting, so adds nothing new.
Still, if you are on the left, I know what you are thinking: Shia Iranians helping Sunni terrorists? That is impossible! Shias don't work with Sunnis!
Yet it happens.
I do hope we end up with the contents of that ship before this is over. I assume we have assets watching the ship.
So how many ships in the Horn of Africa area are hijacked? One percent? Two? A half percent?
We got mighty lucky, if this Iranian-owned and suspiciously Iranian-crewed ship is hauling chemical weapons.
Or is it carrying chemical weapons?
Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died.
I don't know, but that sounds more like radiation exposure than any type of chemical weapons exposure.
So did we get lucky? If so, maybe our CIA and special ops guys should be tipping off pirates to particularly valuable ships owned by Iran or North Korea or other regimes that might move WMD materials or components around.
Which of course makes me ask again, did we really get lucky with this pirate attack?
