Nick Wadhams

A Somali judge is slain

Just in from the BBC: Gunmen in Somalia killed a judge who was known for jailing pirates and Islamic fighters.

It would seem most likely that Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Aware was killed by the al-Shabaab in retaliation for his jailing some of their members. But his killing coincides with an obvious trend: Despite the best efforts of navies from a dozen countries, Somalia's pirates are only getting bolder and better at their job. They recently nabbed a British couple as they sailed near the Seychelles, in an area that was hundreds of miles away from what were considered dangerous waters.

Clearly the pirates have been investing their massive ransom payouts into better ships, better communications, better training. At the same time, the naval force fighting the pirates seems to have settled on a strategy of sending the pirates to Puntland or to Kenya for trial _ or extraditing them to Spain. All speculation, of course, but it would be a worrying thing if Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Aware's death was part of a new pirate strategy of assassinating those who try to slow them down.

The dangers of piracy

The Long War Journal has a curious story about an Iranian vessel hijacked off the coast of Somalia. Apparently the pirates have begun to show signs of chemical poisoning and some have died. The sourcing is pretty dubious, but officials suspect that the MV Iran Deyanat is actually carrying guns and chemical weapons bound for Somali insurgents based in Eritrea.

In 2006, the U.N. said that Iran had helped train Somali insurgents in Eritrea. The U.N. has also said that Iran has sold guns to Somalia's rebels in the past and has tried to negotiate access to its uranium mines. And chemical weapons? That's scary.

Reports like this _ and the great murk that surrounds them _ just make it clear how little anyone really knows about what's happening in the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia. Of course, reporting in Somalia has become too dangerous for anyone not willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on security, as the recent kidnapping of two freelancers attests. Reports like this also remind you of just how much is really happening there that goes unnoticed. 

It makes you wonder. If newspapers had not dynamited their foreign reporting budgets, would stories like this appear in outlets slightly more mainstream than The Long War Journal? Would reporters have the budget to travel to Somalia? Or is that too facile? If ever there was an impossible place to report from, it's Somalia. As it is, the story in The Long War Journal isn't well-sourced enough to appear in a major news outlet. And Iran's apparent involvement in Somalia has been known _ and reported on _ for some time, but no one seems to have cared all that much.

Even so, it's just a feeling you get more and more these days: fewer and fewer of the great stories out there are being told. To arms, fellows, to arms!