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Some seriously scary sh!t... (Iran-related)
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| aNYthing |
This is no Colin Powell waving a little vile of junk at UN.
Source: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...urrounds_hi.php
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Written by Nick Grace & Abdiweli Ali, Ph.D.
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.
It was business as usual when speedboats surrounded the MV Iran Deyanat on August 21. The 44468 dead weight tonnage bulk carrier was pushing towards the Suez and had just entered the Gulf of Aden - dangerous waters where instability, greed and no-questions-asked ransom payments have led to a recent surge in piracy. Steaming past the Horn of Africa, 82 nautical miles southeast of al-Makalla in Yemen, the ship was a prize for the taking. It would bring hundreds of thousands of dollars - possibly millions - to the Somalia-based crime syndicate. The captain was defenseless against the 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades blocking his passage. He had little choice other than to turn his ship over to them. What the pirates were not banking on, however, was that this was no ordinary ship.
The MV Iran Deyanat is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) - a state-owned company run by the Iranian military that was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on September 10, shortly after the ship's hijacking. According to the U.S. Government, the company regularly falsifies shipping documents in order to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments to avoid the attention of shipping authorities, and employs the use of cover entities to circumvent United Nations sanctions to facilitate weapons proliferation for the Iranian Ministry of Defense.
The MV Iran Deyanat set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July and, according to its manifest, planned to travel to Rotterdam, where it would unload 42,500 tons of iron ore and "industrial products" purchased by a German client. Its arrival in the Gulf of Aden, Somali officials tell The Long War Journal, was suspiciously early. According to a publicly available status report on the IRISL Web site, the ship reached the Gulf on August 20 and was scheduled to reach the Suez Canal on August 27 - a seven day journey. "Depending on the speed of the ship," Puntland Minister of Ports Ahmed Siad Nur said in a phone interview on Saturday, "it should take between 4 and 5 days to reach Suez."
A hijacked bulk carrier looms in the horizon of the beach in Eyl. Photo from Garowe Online.
Suspicion has also been cast on the ship's crew, half of which is almost entirely staffed by Iranians - a large percentage of Iranian nationals for a standard merchant vessel. Somali officials say that the ship has a crew of 29 men, including a Pakistani captain, an Iranian engineer, 13 other Iranians, 3 Indians, 2 Filipinos, and 10 Eastern Europeans, possibly Croatian.
The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. 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. "Yes, some of them have died. I do not know exactly how many but the information that I am getting is that some of them have died," Andrew Mwangura, Director of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, said Friday when reached by phone in Mombasa.
News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. Osman also confirmed to The Long War Journal that during the six days he negotiated with the pirates members of the syndicate had become sick and died. "That ship is unusual," he said. "It is not carrying a normal shipment."
The delegation faced a tense situation in Eyl, Osman recounts. The syndicate had demanded a $9 million ransom for 10 ships that were in its possession and refused permission to inspect the Iranian vessel. At one point, he said, the pirates threatened to "blow up" the MV Iran Deyanat if authorities tried to inspect it with force. A committee of delegate members and Eyl city officials was formed to negotiate directly with the pirates in order to defuse the situation.
Once in direct contact, the pirates told Osman that they had attempted to inspect the ship's seven cargo containers after they developed health complications but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the "access codes" and could not open them. The delegation secured contact with the captain and the engineer by cell phone and demanded to know the nature of the cargo, however, Osman says that "they were saying different things to different people." Initially they said that the cargo contained "crude oil" but then claimed it contained "minerals."
"The secrecy is not clear to us," Mwangura said about the cargo. "Our sources say it contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals." IRISL has flatly denied the ship is carrying a "dangerous consignment" and has threatened legal action against Mwangura.
The syndicate set the ship's ransom at $2 million and the Iranian government provided $200,000 to a local broker "to facilitate the exchange." Iran refutes that it agreed to the price and has paid any money to the pirates. Nevertheless, after sanctions were applied to IRISL on September 10, Osman says, the Iranians told the pirates that the deal was off. "They told the pirates that they could not come because of the presence of the U.S. Navy." The region is patrolled by the multinational Combined Taskforce 150, which includes ships from the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.
In a strange twist, the Iranian press claims that the U.S. has offered to pay a $7 million bribe to the pirates to "receive entry permission and search the vessel." Officials in the Pentagon and the Department of State approached for this story refused to comment on the situation. Somali officials would also not comment on any direct U.S. involvement but one high-level official in the Puntland government told The Long War Journal "I can say the ship is of interest to a lot of people, including Puntland."
The exact nature of the cargo remains a mystery but officials in Puntland and Baidoa are convinced the ship was carrying weapons to Eritrea for Islamist insurgents. "We cannot inspect the cargo yet," Osman said, "but we are sure that it is weapons."
"Puntland requested the pirates two weeks ago to hand over this Iranian ship, saying that it is carrying weapons to Eritrea," Puntland Fisheries Minister Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf told Reuters. "I have seen food and other odd items on the ship but I do not know what is hidden underneath."
Iran's involvement in the conflict in Somalia on behalf of Islamist insurgents is well documented. In 2006, Iran flouted arms embargos and provided sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), intelligence sources told The Long War Journal, including SA-7 Strella and SA-18 Igla MANPADS - shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles - as well as AT-3 Sagger antitank missiles.
A report issued by the United Nations in 2006 states that weapons were transferred to Somalia through Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which also absorbed a contingent of 700 Islamist fighters from Somalia during Hezbollah's war with Israel. The report also states that Iran provided support for Islamist training camps inside Somalia and had sent two emissaries to negotiate with the ICU for access to Somalia's uranium mines.
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Sleep tight. Garrr! :thepirate |
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| Jackson |
| CORe version plz! |
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| Zoso |
"...seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland"
Now, refresh my memory. Does this in fact border Cvntland? |
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| mezzir |
Cor Version: somalian pirates hijack iranian cargo boat, can't figure out what the boat's carrying (locked away). Pirates start dying under weird circumstances, seeming like some chemical is doing . USA calls in mulder and scully, the exciting conclusion next week.
my bet's that its carrying the black oil stuff |
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| CGRumler |
And, tomorrow, we will be reading about how the dead are returning to life on this boat..........
:eek: |
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| aNYthing |
I'm curious - what exactly is effect of sanctions when Korea, Russia, or China can easily smuggle a nuke (or several dozen) on a similar shipment? Who's really checking this stuff and exactly how much do we trust all the corrupt people in the world who have access and means to sell nukes to Iran and who can transfer this crap so easily?
Stoping Iran from open nuclear program will accomplish jack sh!t if they can easily smuggle stuff around the world using ships and false premises.
Seriously, think about it for a second - a government like Iran that has virtually limitless acceess to cash can find some 3rd party somewhere that will act as a proxy for some bogus transaction and shipment of some junk that in reality is a freightliner full of nukes.
This is all a joke. It's like setting up gates facing the front but back is wide-open.
Also, final destination for this cargo was Rotterdam. Who's to say part of the shipment was not destined for Europe to be used for terror plots, should US and EU take some military action?
All this talk of sanctions is such a joke. As long as you got people in power willing to pull the trigger on most dangerous substance known to man, there's no sense in any action that one can take. If Iran wants nukes, nukes it will get. |
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| Leif |
| And when Iran has nukes, boohoo the US can't invade them anymore... |
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| Ian |
| quote: | Originally posted by mezzir
Cor Version: somalian pirates hijack iranian cargo boat, can't figure out what the boat's carrying (locked away). Pirates start dying under weird circumstances, seeming like some chemical is doing . USA calls in mulder and scully, the exciting conclusion next week.
my bet's that its carrying the black oil stuff |
:stongue: :stongue: :stongue:
superb, sir. Eastern European? Krycjek of course! |
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| AnomalyConcept |
It almost sounds like radiation poisoning, but I guess certain chemicals could do the same.
Should be fairly easy to check if it's radioactive, though. Just a trick of getting a Geiger counter close enough. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| Wait, people believe that Iran wants to buy nuclear bombs??? lol. |
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| hardcore trancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by aNYthing
I'm curious - what exactly is effect of sanctions when Korea, Russia, or China can easily smuggle a nuke (or several dozen) on a similar shipment? Who's really checking this stuff and exactly how much do we trust all the corrupt people in the world who have access and means to sell nukes to Iran and who can transfer this crap so easily?
Stoping Iran from open nuclear program will accomplish jack sh!t if they can easily smuggle stuff around the world using ships and false premises.
Seriously, think about it for a second - a government like Iran that has virtually limitless acceess to cash can find some 3rd party somewhere that will act as a proxy for some bogus transaction and shipment of some junk that in reality is a freightliner full of nukes.
This is all a joke. It's like setting up gates facing the front but back is wide-open.
Also, final destination for this cargo was Rotterdam. Who's to say part of the shipment was not destined for Europe to be used for terror plots, should US and EU take some military action?
All this talk of sanctions is such a joke. As long as you got people in power willing to pull the trigger on most dangerous substance known to man, there's no sense in any action that one can take. If Iran wants nukes, nukes it will get. |
I say we nuke them,what do you say?:rolleyes: |
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| aNYthing |
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
I say we nuke them,what do you say?:rolleyes: |
Nice bait, sorry I'm not gonna bite. If our own recent history has taught me anything is that evil begets evil. While I don't think nuking Iran would resolve anything except make US a sure target for varoius horrid and alientate it even further from the world, I also have to appreciate the gravity of the outcome of events that are yet to materialize, should Iran succeed in its ambitions.
Also I do think that Iran already has a nuke or two in its arsenal or will very soon - nothing will change that. However, it knows damn well that it cannot or will not be able to use it and survive.
I also think that Iranian people may not share Ahmadinejackoff's views and bombing or invading Iran would only solidify mullahs' position. Furthermore, under our incompetent leader, we have squandered credibility, respect, not to mention resources and forces for idiotic cause and are now just a toothless, de-clawed tiger that can roar but not do much else. So, we're not in position to do and get out of that mess stink-free and intact.
The entire world knows it, sooner US realizes it and starts acting accordingly, the better it is. Sticks and stones may break our bones but words will never hurt us - I hope that is realized by all sides of the conflict. While I don't expect Iran to sit down with us and sing "Koombaya", I don't think getting involved in another war would do a tiny bit to ensure world stability or regional/global security.
Israel is also in no position, having just changed leadership. With Russia openly pissing in our pool and UN being pretty much in a rut and powerless to do anything until Russia gets back into the fold (at who knows what price), we're kinda left without many options.
Looks like Iran may be pretty much free to do whatever unscathed. Now, how that's going to play out in a long run remains to be seen. It is somewhat interested from historical standpoint to observe the collapse of the superpower. Scary, sad, but definitely "interesting".
As an old proverb/curse goes - "May you live in interesting times" seems to be THAT TIME now. |
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