Somalia pirates threaten to kill hostage in wake of Navy SEAL rescue
- Pirates have moved American hostage three times in 24 hours after Wednesday's rescue
- 'If they try again, we will all die together,' a Somali pirate connected to the gang holding the hostage
- Rescued hostages are now at US. Naval Air Base in Sicily
By JILL REILLY
Last updated at 2:30 PM on 27th January 2012
Somali pirates have threatened to kill an American hostage after a daring night-time U.S Navy SEAL mission to rescue two foreign aid workers.
The pirates have moved the hostage at least three times in 24 hours in reaction to the rescue of the U.S. woman and Danish man.
Their response has now raised questions about whether other Western captives are now in greater danger.
Danger: The pirates have moved the American hostage at least three times in 24 hours after U.S. Navy SEALs parachuted into Somalia to rescue a US woman and Danish man earlier in the week (graphic)
Mission: Two teams of U.S. Navy SEALs rescued the hostages after a gun battle with the pirates in the middle of the night (file picture)
'If they try again, we will all die together,' warned Hassan Abdi, a Somali pirate connected to the gang holding the American, who was kidnapped on Saturday in northern Somalia.
'It's difficult to hold U.S. hostages, because it's a game of chance: die or get huge money. But we shall stick with our plans and will never release him until we get a ransom,' Abdi said.
Overnight on Wednesday, U.S. Navy SEALs parachuted into Somalia and hiked to the base where the pirates were holding 32-year-old American Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted, a 60-year-old Dane.
A gun battle ensued and nine of the pirates were killed. The hostages were freed unharmed. No casualties have been reported among the U.S. forces.
In response the gang holding the American kidnapped in the northern town of Galkayo have moved him three times, Abdi said.
'Holding hostages in one place is unlikely now because we are the next target,' he told The Associated Press by telephone.
He also expressed concern that the U.S. has pirate informants.
'It wasn't just a hit-and-run operation, but long planned with the help of insiders among us,' Abdi said, noting that the Americans struck at a time when the pirates were least on their guard.
U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said officials have been in contact with the family of the latest American kidnapping victim.
Night-time rescue: The pirates kidnapped 32-year-old American Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted, a 60-year-old Dane in October
Held captive: Ms Buchanan, left, of Virginia, and Mr Thisted, right, are seen speaking in a hostage video
'We are also working with our contacts in Kenya and in Somalia to try to get more information,' Nuland told reporters in Washington.
'Obviously we condemn kidnapping of any kind and call for the immediate release of the victims - any victims. We also would note that our travel warning for Somalia does caution U.S. citizens about the risk of travel.'
After their rescue, Miss Buchanan and Mr Thisted were flown to the U.S. Naval Air Base at Sigonella on the Italian island of Sicily to undergo medical screenings and other evaluations before heading home, a U.S. defense official said.
Miss Buchanan's family was meeting her at the base, which is the hub of U.S. Navy air operations in the Mediterranean.
The pair had been working for the Danish De-mining Group, part of the Danish Refugee Council, when they were abducted by gunmen near the north-central town of Galkay in October.
Danish Foreign Minister Villy Sovndal said Miss Buchanan's poor health had led the U.S. to take action and the operation did not necessarily pave the way for further missions
An ailing Frenchwoman kidnapped by Somali gunmen died in captivity last year after not having access to her medication.
Message: Barack Obama, who authorised the rescue mission, called Miss Buchanan's father John to say: 'All Americans have Jessica in our thoughts and prayers, and give thanks that she will soon be reunited with her family'
There is mixed opinion on the effect the U.S. raid will have on the situation with other captives, with one pirate warning that other U.S. hostages might suffer as a result.
However a Western official in Kenya said that the killings of the nine captors might make pirates think twice about taking more captives.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
On Wednesday evening, hours after the U.S. military raid, the gang holding the American hostage started circulating false rumours that they had executed him.
Another security official who has years of experience in the region said it was likely the men holding the American would move him onto a ship with other foreign hostages, because ships were easier to defend and planning rescue operations is more complicated when hostages from other countries are involved.
At least one pirate agreed with his analysis.
'I think land captivity is going to end now. Sea is much safer,' pirate Mohamed Nur said by phone from the coastal town of Hobyo. 'Even ships are not very safe, but you can at least hit back and resist.'
Other hostages held in Somalia include a British tourist and two Spanish aid workers seized in neighboring Kenya, a French military adviser and 155 sailors of various nationalities hijacked at sea.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2092575/Somalia-pirates-threaten-kill-hostage-wake-Jessica-Buchanan-Navy-SEAL-rescue.html#ixzz1kgZ8wW6Q
April 04, 2007
Somali Taxi Drivers in Minnesota in Dispute Over Passengers with Pets, Alcohol
Many Muslim taxi drivers are refusing service to passengers carrying alcohol, and sometimes pets, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in the Midwest U.S. state of Minnesota. They say it is for religious reasons. But airport officials recently held hearings to consider tough, new penalties against those drivers because they say religious beliefs should not interfere with the job . VOA's Deborah Block has more from Minneapolis.
Airport officials say an average of 12 people each month are denied taxi service at the airport because they are carrying alcohol.
About three-quarters of the 900 airport taxi drivers are from the East African country of Somalia, and they are mostly Muslim. Somali cab driver Mohamoud Mohamud says he will not take passengers with alcohol.
"It is against my religion, and I don't think I can carry somebody who has alcohol," he says.
Islam prohibits drinking alcohol. But it is debatable whether the religion forbids anyone from carrying alcohol.
Last year, the airport commission received a fatwa, or religious edict, from the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. The group said Islamic law prohibits taxi drivers from taking passengers with alcohol because it involves cooperating in sin. But spokesman Hesham Hussein says Muslim scholars have different interpretations.
"Applying it to the airport situation, to the cab drivers, there is a difference of opinion amongst people whether [by] carrying a person who is carrying alcohol, you are helping him do that or are you actually carrying the person and you don't have to worry about what they're carrying with them," Hussein says.
Airport officials say a few Muslim taxi drivers also refuse to carry passengers with animals, especially dogs. Hassan Mohamoud, a local Muslim spiritual leader or imam, says Islam considers dogs unclean.
"There is a question of whether the saliva of dog touches the body of the Muslim. They have to wash that at least seven times before they pray," he explains. "So they are trying to avoid the saliva of the dog, but they're not trying to avoid the whole dog."
College student Nickie Coby is blind and uses a service dog. She is concerned that people with service dogs are not allowed in some taxis. "When you agree to become a cab driver, I think, to some extent you have to be willing to transport everyone," she says.
Currently, drivers who refuse to take passengers must go to the end of the taxi line. They wait for their turn in a nearby parking lot where it may take two hours or more before they are called back to the airport.
"Unfortunately, that penalty hasn't been enough to encourage drivers not to refuse people," says Patrick Hogan, an airport commission spokesman. "We still have the problem of people coming to the airport just thinking that they're going to get a ride home, to a hotel or wherever they're going, and lo and behold they can't get a ride because they happen to have a dog with them or cat with them or alcohol in their possession."
If the new regulations are passed, drivers who refuse passengers the first time will have their airport taxi license suspended for 30 days. The next time they lose their license for two years.
Somali taxi driver Muse Mohamud thinks the penalties are too harsh. "It's wrong if they suspend the license for somebody because of his faith or religion," he says. "It's absolutely wrong, wrong."
But cab driver Rick Heil sees things differently. "Even though it may fall against somebody's religious beliefs, the benefit should go to the person who needs the service," he says.
Ethiopian driver Kidist Gemtow is not Muslim. She says the Muslim cab drivers knew what they were getting into when they took the job. "They have to decide to work here or leave the place and find another job," she says.
On April 15, the airport commission expects to make a decision on whether to impose the new regulations, which would begin in mid-May. If that happens, hundreds of drivers may decide to leave or possibly lose their jobs.
Somalis on trial in France for yacht hijacking
Published: 16 Nov 2011 10:35 GMT+1
Six Somali men accused of taking a French couple hostage on their yacht went on trial in Paris on Tuesday in France's first prosecution of alleged Somali pirates.
They are facing charges of hijacking, kidnapping and armed robbery after they allegedly seized the yacht and its crew, Jean-Yves Delanne and his wife Bernadette, both aged 60, off the coast of Somalia in 2008.
They face life in prison if convicted.
The six, aged between 21 and 35, were captured and flown to France after French special forces stormed the yacht, the Carre d'As IV, and rescued the couple. A seventh suspect was killed in the raid.
One of the suspects was a minor at the time of the crime but the court granted the defence's request to hold the trial in public and not behind closed doors.
The suspects had reportedly demanded a ransom of $2 million (€1.5 million) for the couple's release.
But in the French courtroom on Tuesday only one of them admitted to taking part as an "underling" in the hostage-taking.
"I was in such a financial situation, I have six children, it was then that I crossed paths with someone who recruited me," said Ahmed Hamoud Mahmoud, a fisherman who is accused of being one of the leaders of the operation.
Another Somali suspect claimed he himself was "kidnapped" by pirates who commandeered his boat to carry out the operation.
One suspect spoke of being grabbed by pirates when he got into trouble in the Gulf of Aden en route to Yemen to look for work, while another said all he did was cook the food.
Their trial, which resumes Wednesday and is expected to last to November 30th, marks the first time France has brought alleged Somali pirates to court.
Somali suspects in three other cases are currently awaiting trial.
Dozens of ships, mainly merchant vessels, have been seized by gangs off Somalia's 3,700-kilometre coastline in recent years.
The pirates travel in high-powered speedboats and are armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. They sometimes hold ships for weeks until they are released for large ransoms paid by governments or owners.
Minnesota Neighborhoods Struggle With Rise of Somali Gangs
Published July 20, 2009
Associated Press
Families that belong to this Minnesota mosque, Abubakar As-Saddiqu, were suspected of having a role in their loved ones' disappearance.
Ahmednur Ali's family fled the chaos and violence of their East African homeland Somalia in the 1990s, eventually making their way to Minnesota like thousands of their compatriots.
While many of the estimated 32,000 Somalis who settled in the state have struggled to adapt, Ali flourished. By age 20, he had blazed a path to Minneapolis' Augsburg College, where he played soccer, studied political science and aspired to a political career modeled on President Barack Obama's.
He was shot and killed last September outside a busy community center where he worked part-time as a youth counselor, and prosecutors said the 16-year-old accused of killing him was part of a gang.
Ali was one of seven Minneapolis-area Somali men killed over a 10-month period, and authorities believe all were killed by fellow Somalis. Police say it's too simple to tie all the killings to Somali gangs, which have lured hundreds of young community members to their ranks in recent years.
Those in the insular community willing to speak out, however, disagree.
"It was all gang activity, totally, 100 percent," said Shukri Adan, a former Somali community organizer who estimated in a 2007 report for the city that between 400 and 500 young Somalis were active in gangs. "The police don't want to say that but everybody else knows that."
Despite anger and despair over the killings in Minnesota's Somali community — the nation's largest — police and prosecutors have struggled to catch and try the killers. Few witnesses have stepped forward because of a fear of reprisal and deep-rooted distrust of authority. More than half of Minnesota's Somalis are living in poverty, according to state statistics, and many complain that authorities are biased against Somalis because of their Islamic faith.
Last month, prosecutors dropped the murder charge against the teenage boy in Ali's case after one witness backed out and another apparently fled the state.
Gangs like the Somali Hot Boyz, the Somali Mafia and Madhibaan with Attitude have grown more active in recent years, said Jeanine Brudenell, the Minneapolis Police Department's Somali liaison officer.
The recent spate of killings started in December 2007, when two Somali men, ages 27 and 25, were found shot to death at a south Minneapolis home. No arrests have been made in that case.
They culminated last September, when a man was fatally shot outside of the Village Market Mall, a cluster of Somali-owned businesses and a popular destination for local Somalis. Investigators believe the shooter was retaliating for the death of his cousin, one of the other slain Somalis. The mall shooting was the only of the seven slayings for which anyone was convicted — 23-year-old Hassan Mohamed Abdillahi.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said he hoped the conviction would show local Somalis that the law is on their side, and spark new progress in closing the other cases. "We have a job to do to convince people they can trust us," he said.
A gang expert in California said economic and social factors are more likely to blame for the spike in gang activity than any spillover of violence from war-ravaged Somalia.
"When there's unemployment and poverty and lack of external support, there's gangs," said Jorja Leap, a social welfare professor at the University of California Los Angeles and former gang adviser to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Investigators in a separate criminal investigation have said they've also had trouble penetrating Minnesota's Somali community. The FBI is looking into the disappearance in recent years of up to 20 young Somali men, mostly from Minneapolis, believed to have been recruited into Islamist terror groups back in Somalia.
The first sign of progress in that investigation came this week with the indictment on terrorism charges of two young Somali men, at least one of whom is accused of traveling to Somalia to fight.
Elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada, police and community officials have reported an increase in Somali gang activity.
In and around Edmonton, Alberta, six young Somali men have been slain in the last six months. The leader of a small Somali outreach group there said the deaths are seen as evidence of a growing gang problem, and that they've led to better cooperation between Somalis and police.
"It seems like the community now is getting to the point where we are trying to give information to the police, and they are sharing information with us," said Mohamednur Mardowe, who heads the Brotherhood Community Support Service Association.
Police in Columbus, Ohio, which has the second largest U.S. population of Somalis, have also seen growing evidence of Somali gangs, said Sgt. Chantay Boxill.
Ahmednur Ali's sister, Hindia Ali, said she hopes her fellow Somalis will stand up against the violence.
"I don't think any Somali person wants killing to continue," she said. "We all want this violence to stop."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534048,00.html#ixzz1kge30592
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