Pirates Off Somali Coast

Piracy of the coast of Somalia has been a big problem for quiet a while. Anarchy has ruled after the UN and the US gave up trying to intervene leaving pirates to rule the seas off the coast. Merchant ship's crews are taken and held for ransom. It's believed the shipping companies readily pay the ransom to get their people out.

Yet, despite his military setback in Afghanistan and the arrest of over 1,300 al-Qaeda suspects in over 70 countries, bin Laden's terrorist network remains "the most immediate and serious threat" to American security, according to Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet. 1 Largely expelled from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda may seek to regroup in another country where it could count on some degree of local support.

Somalia is such a place. It is a failed state whose lawless anarchy would permit terrorists to operate relatively freely. The al-Qaeda network has operated there in the past and has longstanding ties to a small minority of Somali Islamists, with which it has worked since the early 1990s.

It doesn't take much imagination to figure out where the ransom money is going and what it is financing. So why is nothing being done about it? In any war the one of the keys to victory or defeat is the security of supply lines. Money is one of the life lines of terror. By cutting off this flow their ability to continue will be severely hampered.

For a look at the charitable financing of terror look here.
For more on interdicting terrorist funding look here.