[Times-UK] Rob Crilly - Islamist extremists unloaded rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns from a Ukrainian freighter seized by Somali pirates even as foreign warships surrounded the vessel. "The Islamists have sent pick-ups from Mogadishu to go and collect the gear," said an analyst with a network of Somali informers. "There's not much they can do with the tanks - they can't get them off - but the rest of the weapons they are trying to move ashore." Bruno Schiemsky, a Somali analyst based in Kenya, said that Somalia's al-Shabaab militia - the youth wing of the Islamist movement - had joined forces with the pirates, offering weapons training in return for lessons in plundering at sea. "This has now gone beyond money. The Shabaab are now at sea looking for Israelis, Americans and other Westerners," he said. "This is getting very nasty now."
2008-09-29 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive