Somali Bound Arms Captured in South Africa

Dec 23 2010

An arms-shipment from Malta, purportedly earmarked to 'help fight Somalian pirates', was 'illegally diverted" to the illegal arms trade in South Africa claims the SAPS, whose task force raided a Westville Durban home and confiscated

• 308 rifles,
• two shotguns,
• two AM3 assault rifles with telescopic lens and silencers, and
• 592 rounds of ammunition.

The South African harbour is well known among international security agencies for its many illegal shipments of weapons to African 'rebels' and terrorist groups

Four people of unknown origin including three women, were arrested on Thursday when Durban police raided a Westville home and seized weapons and ammunition which the Mercury wrote was 'believed to be destined for Somalia to help in the fight against piracy, but which had been illegally diverted".

Nompumelelo Magwaza and Kyle Venktess wrote in the Mercury that the weapons came from Malta (which has no arms industry…).

Police spokesman Lt-Col Vincent Mdunge refused to tell the Mercury who this arms shipment had been designated to, claiming 'itwas still being investigated".

The investigation which led them to the house in Westville had been ongoing and more firearms could be found. "We believe the firearms were illegally diverted to South Africa, but how they ended up in Durban remains a mystery," he said. "We believe the house was being used as a firearms holding area," Mdunge said.

Those arrested, two 20-year-old women, a 28-year-old woman and a 39-year-old man, would appear in the Pinetown Magistrate's Court today. It is believed that part of the house had been converted into offices where two women were working.

Who was buying these weapons headed for Somalia?

There is indeed a rather strangely-convoluted and secretive trade going on between South African business people in Zululand and Somalia's mineral-rich, self-styled independent Puntland region (pop. 2.4-million) which also is important to the international naval task force fighting Somalian piracy. There apparently is an an ethnic-cleansing campaign going on against the Warsangali tribe living in the mineral-rich villages, allegedly being led by warlord Cabdiraxman Faroole if Western military sources are to be believed.

They claim that he used to be engaged in human trafficking and piracy but that the traditional council of Puntland has lately 'taken a hard line against piracy.' Faroole apparently has signed deals to sell the region's rare minerals and tin to an Australian mining company. To do all this, he obviously needs lots of firearms to make the area secure for mining.

Puntland warlord Cabdiraxman Faroole training more than a thousand soldiers:Puntland's warlord is said to be training more than a thousand soldiers: to 'fight piracy' as he claims, but Somalia and the Pentagon are accusing him of mounting an ethnic cleansing campaign against local Warsangali tribesmen to make the region secure for an Australian company to mine the region's 30,000 tons of tin mineral worth about 250 million American dollars.

Two villages in particular are being converted into safe mining regions: Galgala and Mijayahan. Somalia's provisional 'government' arrested "six Russian crew members" and seized this hired South African plane which was 'carrying military supplies to Puntland' the Somalian authorities claimed.']

However it may all have been a terrible mistake… the plane may have been hired by an American documentary-producer to transport a South African TV-crew to cover a news story in Somalia… all the equipment found on board were of a 'non-lethal' nature…

Somaliland's interior minister, Mohamed Abdi Gabose, was adamant however, telling reporters in the regional capital Hargeysa that the cargo plane was in violation of the international arms embargo on Somalia.

"The aircraft was originally coming from South Africa and Kampala. They asked for permission to land at our airport after experiencing a fuel shortage," Gabose said. "But it landed before we officially gave our green light and we have seized the plane," he said, adding that the six crew members were arrested.

"This aircraft was heading to Puntland and carried military uniforms as well as other supplies for the newly recruited militiamen," the minister claimed. -----------Puntland is crucial to the multinational task-force which fights the Somalian pirates: most of their naval bases are along its shoreline.

The US-government has however been vehemently opposed to Somalia's use of the UK-based 'private security company' Saracen International to help 'train a dedicated anti-piracy force'.

The Pentagon was angered by the move, claiming that it was concerned over 'the lack of transparency regarding the funding'. "This company that is training the militiamen is doing illegal business and violated the international arms embargo on Somalia," Gabose said. "The military training provided to Puntland is a threat to Somaliland's security and to that of the region in general," he said. Airport officials said heavy security was deployed around the plane as its cargo and manifest were being further investigated.http://ping.fm/x4voE '

Afrikaner TV-journalists released by Somalia: mistaken for mercenaries: The Mercury noted in their story however that Afrikaner TV-journalists Anton van der Merwe and Chris Everson from Cape Town were released by the Somalian authorities.

They were mistaken for mercenaries and were arrested in Somalia on December 10.The two journalists work for SPA, an American documentary news show and had been enroute to cover an independent production in Somalia. They were arrested when boarding a charter aircraft which had been arranged for them by the American company.http://ping.fm/kK14M---------------------------------------------Somalian pirates still hold two white South Africans:

Somali pirates have been involved in horrifically cruel kidnappings and hijackings of ships and their crews along the entire East Coast of Africa up to Kenya for the past two decades. As their wealth grew, they have become more sophisticated: purchasing hi-tech equipment and focussing on kidnapping the most lucrative targets: whites on board ships passing the East-African coastline.

White captives fetch millions of dollars in ransom and because the pirates also use the news media to put pressure on the families of their captives, they usually get paid very well indeed. At the moment, one white couple from Durban is still held captive: Bruno Pelizzari and Deborah Caitz were kidnapped by the armed pirates along with skipper Peter Eldridge on October 26. Within ten days, a Dutch naval vessel ran their vessel ashore; forcing the pirates to flee with the couple while leaving Eldridge behind: he refused to leave the yacht. Eldridge was then brought back to Richards Bay by the Dutch naval vessel.

The International Maritime Organisation and the World Food Programme have expressed concern over the alarming rise in piracy along the East African coastline. For the past ten years, companies have increasingly been diverting their ships around the Cape of Good Hope, causing soaring shipping coasts and seriously interfering with the shipments of emergency food-aid to famine-struck regions.

A multinational coalition naval task force including Russia, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, the USA and Japan has been set up to patrol the vast stretches of Indian ocean to combat the scourge. Increasingly wealthy Somalian pirates in their high-speed boats have kidnapped thousands of people and hundreds of marine vessels from as far away from Somalia as the Seychelles islands and even in Kenya. This was a compilation of the Mercury articleand other news sources.

The Rest @ The Long Walk Since Freedom