They're baaack

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... they're back! Those pesky pirates. Let the jokes resume.

This time, the buccaneers have captured the Sirius Star, a VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier... duh) carrying 2 million barrels of, um, crude. Most disturbing of all, they did it 450 miles south of their usual patch.

It was a funny thing at a news conference today with Britain's Armed Forces Minister, the Rt. Hon. Bob Ainsworth. The Rt. Hon. opened the event with a statement praising British Marines for "interdicting" (his description) a boatload of pirates a few days back. "That sounds impressive," I thought.

Then something caught my attention. He referred to the interdicted vessel as a dhow. A dhow? I'd had images of a big pirate vessel being swarmed by British commandos. A quick Google search later, and I'd found a pic:

That was it? Golly, not so impressive. I guess any interdiction is a good thing, but the picture made me chuckle. I remember in early October, one editor I write for now and again shot down the idea of a story about pirates having seized that ship full of tanks because he thought the World would bust some heads and liberate the vessel before the story saw daylight.

Two months later, here we are. The MV Faina remains moored somewhere off the coast of Somalia. As various NATO and American task forces talk the talk, pirates roam the seas at will, and seize one of the largest sea-going vessels on the planet.

Comments

[Aaron]

Congrats on the related article, picked up by at least Time online.