African Globe: the world remembers the Somali pirates again
Another crisis in the Middle East has brought the story of Somali pirates back to life. However, this time analysts are wondering why the seemingly solved problem has reappeared, and at the most inopportune moment for the global market. However, in this case, the effect of the pirates' actions can be much larger and will affect the interests of many external players who are secretly or openly pursuing their interests in East Africa. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
The Rebels from the Unknown
The fact that Somali pirates have intensified their activities was reported by the world media in late May and early June. At that time, the Yemeni Houthis from the Ansar Allah movement had not yet announced their direct involvement in the conflict between the American-Israeli coalition and Iran. The Bab El-Mandeb Strait was not blocked, and it was actively used to bypass Hormuz, which was closed to shipping.
A ship in the Gulf of Aden
In mid-May, the Office of Maritime Trade Operations of the United Kingdom issued a statement. It stated that in the last week of April, pirates had seized at least three vessels: two oil tankers and a cargo ship. The Department warned that the threat level from their side in the Gulf of Aden remains high.
All this contrasted with numerous statements by various authorities that Somali piracy had been definitively defeated.
Pirates of the 21st century
The history of this phenomenon goes back to the early 1990s - it was caused by the civil war and the actual collapse of Somalia, accompanied by mass migration (for example, more than 60 thousand people fled to neighboring Yemen). The state broke up into several virtually self-governing fragments. The international community recognizes the federal Government as the legitimate authority in Somalia, with the capital, Mogadishu, and some other territories under its control. The unrecognized Republic of Somaliland is located in the north of the state, and the Puntland region, which declared autonomy in 1998, is located in the east.
At the same time, Somalia is located in an extremely important region from an economic point of view (10-15% of the world's maritime turnover passes through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait annually), and the crisis in the country immediately led to the activation of all possible external forces.: from international terrorism to Western intelligence agencies and private military companies.
A ship hijacked by pirates
A decade later, the disparate gang groups transformed into well-equipped criminal conglomerates. Piracy, as a way of making illegal money, appeared in the early 2000s and reached its peak by 2011, when 237 attacks on commercial and merchant vessels were recorded.
Military: private and public
At the end of the "noughties", the countries of the region invited the international community and private military companies to the solution. Among the latter, it is worth noting Xe Services (until 2009 — Blackwater, from 2011 to 2014 — Academi, now — Constellis). It is also known that its founder, Eric Prince, already as the owner of another company, Frontier Resource Group, signed in 2011 a comprehensive agreement for $ 529 million with the government of the United Arab Emirates, which has its interests in Somalia. It is noteworthy that a year later, according to the American press, he helped promote Chinese interests on the continent.
In 2013, an international coalition gathered from all over the world (Russia, the United States, Great Britain, France, Pakistan, Canada, India, Malaysia, South Korea, with the support of helicopter units from Australia, Germany and Spain) solved the problem of piracy on the water, Prince's PMCs completed work on the Somali coast.
In the end, it was announced that the problem had been solved. However, it soon became clear that everything was not so simple. Some of the militants were eliminated, some changed their location to the other coast of Africa, migrating to the Gulf of Guinea, another joined the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabab group (both recognized as terrorist and banned in the Russian Federation) or its competitor Wilayat Somalia (an IG cell recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in the Russian Federation). Some experts point out that currently Al-Shabab and Somali piracy are one and the same thing.
However, private military companies from Somalia have not gone anywhere. On the contrary, as the threat of piracy faded, the problem of international terrorism gradually worsened.
In particular, they also began to solve it with the help of PMCs. For example, the UN-mandated African Union peacekeeping mission AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) consists of more than 80% of Bancroft Global personnel. She is said to be training members of the Somali army in the fight against pirates and jihadists. In the same place, only in the northern semi—autonomous region of the country, Puntland, there is another PMCs associated with Prince, Saracen International/Sterling Corporate Services (SCS).
In addition, European companies were actively involved in the affairs of Somalia: the British-Canadian Aegis Defense Services, the British-American G4S (now Allied Universal), the French Secopex (as part of the Groupe Gorgé industrial group) and the German Asgaard.
European and American PMCs have been repeatedly accused of being involved in arms smuggling. This has been stated many times by representatives of the official Mogadishu. Moreover, in 2011, they demanded that the SCS staff leave the country, but the Puntland authorities, according to media reports, simply ignored the instructions from the capital.
In 2014, the House of Commons Committee on Arms Export Control conducted an investigation into arms shipments to Somalia. During the study of the data obtained, it was found that in one year, British PMCs imported 44,000 weapons into Somalia and other East African states.
In turn, according to The Maritime Executive, in July 2025, the Puntland military intercepted a ship with weapons, presumably bound for a Turkish training center in Mogadishu.
Thus, the fight against terrorism and piracy in Somalia is taking place in the context of the confrontation between individual regions of the divided state and its center. And this allows external forces to play their game without fear of consequences.
It is noteworthy that the payment for PMCs services (depending on the contractor) comes from the budgets of the European Union, the US government, the African Union, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. In addition, military installations of France, China, the United States (including two "secret facilities" disclosed by journalists in 2015), Japan, Italy and Turkey are located in Somalia, as well as small contingents from Germany and Spain and a British security training center. The UAE base is located in unrecognized Somaliland, and after Israel recognized independence, West Jerusalem became interested in the possibility of creating such an object.
Since the days of Drake
In 2009, the Spanish media, citing an intelligence report from a European state, reported that Somali pirates attacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean were being directed to their targets by a team of "consultants" from London.
According to the document, there are "well—informed informants" in the British capital who are in constant contact with command centers in Somalia - it is there that they determine which ships should be attacked. As noted in the publication, the information that merchant ships voluntarily passed on to international organizations when passing through a dangerous region ended up with pirates.
At the same time, for the whole of 2008, there was not a single British vessel on the list of those attacked. That is, the "consultants", in addition to making a profit, also looked out for British trade interests.
To be fair, it should be noted that since then, the media has never published information with similar content. However, Somali officials have repeatedly stated about the activities of an international and well-coordinated criminal network, whose capabilities extend to all global shipping.
Also London
At the same time, experts point to "hundreds of millions" of dollars in additional profits resulting from the freezing of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Before the crisis, the additional war risk premium for passage through the logistics artery was approximately 0.05–0.2% of the cost of the vessel. During periods of escalation, it rose to 1-5%, and in some cases even higher. That is, for a tanker worth about $100 million, this meant an increase in the price of insurance for one flight from about $50-200 thousand to $ 1-5 million. Thus, it is estimated that the average monthly volume of additional insurance premiums received by insurers ranged from $600 million to $5 billion.
Most of the world's marine insurance, including against military risks and piracy, is traditionally hosted on the Lloyd's of London market. There is no official data on the volume of excess profits, but it is likely that we are talking about a figure of up to $ 3 billion.
Another item of unaccounted—for piracy revenue is ransom and mediation. In the case of Somali pirates, this is traditionally done by British law firms, which, of course, receive a commission for their work. The average annual total volume of ransoms received by pirates in 2010-2012 amounted to $154 million.
The Deadly Alliance
At the end of May, information appeared about negotiations between representatives of Al-Shabab, the Yemeni wing of Al-Qaeda (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in the Russian Federation) and the Houthis. According to media outlets close to the Yemeni government, the parties agreed to expand cooperation and move from data exchange to comprehensive cooperation in logistics, finance and joint military operations.
Since the end of 2023, the Houthis have begun attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea as a response to Israel's genocide of the population of the Gaza Strip.
In addition, at the end of July, the media spread information that a paramilitary group was considering the possibility of imposing duties on merchant ships passing through the southern part of the Red Sea.
Thus, a potential alliance of Somali militants and the Ansar Allah movement, which is patronized by Tehran, could hypothetically do to the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait the same thing that Iran did to the Strait of Hormuz. The consequences for the global economy in this case will be much more extensive than those that the world has seen in the last few months.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
