Monday, April 20, 2009

Predictions: Somali Pirates Will Team Up with AQ

On NPR this morning I learned about a Somali jihadist organization called al-Shabab, which apparently has attracted the attention of our military. According to NPR:
...The al-Shabab camps have a kind of open door policy — they don't just train al-Shabab recruits; they will welcome anyone who arrives claims to fight for jihad. Two recent suicide bombings targeting South Korean tourists in Yemen were linked to the al-Shabab camps.
There was some earnest bloviating by the NPR sources about whether it would be a good idea or a bad idea to flatten al-Shabab training camps with airstrikes. (The answer of course is that its a good idea to kill fanatics who blow up Korean tourists, but a bad idea to make all the other Somalis angry at you if you do it. Thanks guys, that's helpful.)

But the real point is that there is a well-trained Somali group with a ready supply of fanatics and explosives. Eventually they will team up with these pirates or maybe just imitate them. Either way, we're going to see container ships targeted by guys with speedboats full of explosives.

And then, when the rescue operations start, a helpful fishing trawler will turn out to be packed to the gunwales, not with red snapper (very tasty) but Semtex.

It will get messy very quickly.

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