Somalia: Where Piracy Meets Prayer Mats

During the first week in May, Somalia’s hard-line Islamist militant group Hizbul Islam stormed the pirate enclave of Harardhere and demanded an end to the “dirty business” of piracy. Hizbul Islam members marched about the streets carrying guns and threatening to punish the pirates and free any captive crew members they encountered. The pirates had already skipped town, however, retreating to another pirate town several miles up the coast. Hizbul Islam did not pursue them, content to stay in the vacated Harardhere and rattle their swords from there.

Pirates have brought millions of dollars from ransom payments to Somalia’s unpaved and underdeveloped coastal towns, but they have also brought luxury and vice that clashes with the Muslim population. Luxury vehicles, big screen TVs, prostitutes, and alcohol are all common themes in the pirate narrative, and both Hizbul Islam and rival Islamist group al-Shabaab have vowed to rid the country of the un-Islamic activity. Behind the scenes, however, it appears that the Islamic militants are content to take hush money under the table. Al-Shabaab is believed to have provided weapons training for the pirates, as well as protection from authorities and general free range in militant-controlled territory. The militants are also rumored to demand taxes from the pirates, and this may have been the fault line that sparked the recent conflict between the two parties. According to local residents, both Hizbul Islam and al-Shabaab scouts had gone to Harardhere to demand taxes, which the pirates refused. Both groups then appeared to be advancing on the town, to collect their taxes by force, but Hizbul Islam beat its rival to the punch.

In addition to collecting taxes, Hizbul Islam had another motive for moving into Harardhere. The move was likely an attempt to gain a territorial advance at the expense of al-Shabaab, who earlier ousted Hizbul Islam from the lucrative port town of Kismayo, further south along the coast. Once in Harardhere, Hizbul Islam seemed keen to establish its Islamic credentials as well, insisting that its presence would bring the town back under Islamic shari’a rule. For Hizbul Islam, this includes public executions and amputations for convicted criminals, as well as a strict enforcement of cultural regulations, such as no music, now soccer, and no Western aid agencies.

Both Hizbul Islam and al-Shabaab tout a staunchly anti-Western agenda and seem in constant competition to be the “harder-line” of the two. Both are offshoots from the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which briefly ruled the country after warlords overthrew the brutish dictator Siad Barre in 1991. Hizbul Islam is led by Sheikh Hasan Dahir Aweys, a former ICU cleric and hard-line Islamist who split with the current president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, whom he accuses of being a puppet of the West. It seems puzzling, therefore, that on May 9, Hizbul Islam vowed to free two British hostages who have been held captive by pirates for more than six months. Paul and Rachel Chandler, a British couple in their 50s, were kidnapped when pirates hijacked their yacht of the Seychelles archipelago last October. The Chandlers’ captors separated them after British Special Forces botched a rescue attempt, and their mental and physical health has been deteriorating steadily since. Paul Chandler is losing his sight to an eye infection, and his wife Rachel alternates from staring into space and screaming her husband’s name in a shrill voice. The pirates demanded a $2m ransom for the couple, which they later reduced after friends and family members failed to come up with the money. The pirates also came close to releasing the couple without a ransom payment, but this never materialized. The pirates are now demanding a ransom just to cover their costs, which they claim is $60k a month.

According to a reporter who spoke personally with the Chandlers’ captives, they are afraid that Hizbul Islam may indeed attempt to rescue the hostages and “fly them to their homeland without taking any ransom.” In this case, the pirates would be out their costs and the 6 months of time they lost when they could have been hijacking more ships. Rescuing British hostages, however, seems inconsistent with the militants’ staunch anti-Western ideology. Extorting taxes from the “un-Islamic” pirates is no less inconsistent, however, but this does not seem to daunt the hard-line militants. In the 20 years of chaos in Somalia, pragmatism has proved to be the key to survival, whereas idealism is as dead as the thousands of Somalis who have perished in the conflict.