Tedla Asfaw
Al Shabab spokesman Sheik Abdirahman promised to rescue Saudi Arabia's oil tanker Sirius Star which has $100 m value hijacked by Somali gunmen docked at Harardhere on coast of Somalia since last Saturday. Secret negotiation is underway to rescue the ship and the price tag is going to be around $25 m a big profit in today's market for few days of job.
BBC reported for this year 90 vessels were hijacked so far and was paid $150 m . The hijackers of Sirius deal if it goes through will bring more Somalis to the booming business on Somalia coast. Many young gunmen are going to join this booming hijacking business until there is a legitimate Somalia where rules, both on land and sea will be preserved to give hope for these young Somalis.
Al Shabab or the hated government of Somalia in Mogadishu has no control of the Somali coast and the talk of fighting hijackers to retrieve the "Muslim Ship" is just a ploy by Al Shabab to get the support of Saudi dictatorship on the eventual collapse of the Mogadishu regime in the coming days or months.
The countries that are affected by the hijacking will support anybody in Somalia which will take action against the hijackers and care less on what is going on inside Somalia. However, Somalis politics have made it impossible to separate the sea from land and that is why Al Shabab is jumping and wanted to control the sea when the Mogadishu regime is cornered in Mogadishu and Baidoa with its TPLF/Ethiopia support.
The TPLF of Ethiopia has no sea control because it has already surrendered Ethiopia's coast to Isaias of Eritrea with no force to support its stooges in Mogadishu from sea. Ethiopia has been pushed from the sea thanks to the Arab dictators in collaboration of their western allies.
The talk in Cairo of the so called countries from the surrounding area does not include Ethiopia and the new owner of Ethiopia's coast, Isaias is not showing up maybe he is represented by his stooges from the Somalia side. Weak and poor Ethiopia, stripped of its sea coast is surrounded by countries that despise her for remaining independent while these same countries were under the rule of foreign powers for their long history.
I will not be surprised if these so called surrounding countries of Somalia take the slice of the Somali coast under their control with the help of West and China in the name of fighting piracy for the coming future and that is a big possibility and great danger.
