Can mercenaries defeat the Somali pirates?

Jim Cowling has chosen the right moment to launch his new business. An experienced security consultant, he has just set up a company called Shipguard, with a small office in Clerkenwell. The product: providing the men, the know-how, and if necessary the weapons, to defeat the pirates that are the scourge of Somali waters.

‘We’re one of the groups throwing our hats into the ring,’ says Cowling. ‘This is going to be the next Iraq in terms of where mercenaries are going. Iraq is being wound down, and guys are looking around and latching onto piracy.’

He is far from alone. In the past year, as pirates have menaced the Gulf and the Indian Ocean demanding bigger and bigger ransoms, so dozens of companies have sprung up to fight them. But there is also a fierce debate going on within the shipping industry. Can the pirates be defeated by a few resourceful mercenaries, ready to take the fight back to them in the kind of robust language they understand? Or, as many shipping experts argue, is that just going to inflame an already difficult situation, when the solution can only really come from better policing by the world’s major navies?

There’s little doubting the eagerness of the mercenaries — or the scale of the problem. ‘Every man and his dog is out there,’ said one security consultant who preferred to remain anonymous. ‘Or rather, every man and his dolphin.’ The Somali pirates burst on to the world stage by seizing the oil tanker Sirius Star with a cargo worth $100 million last November. But they have been a menace for a long time. Last year, more than 100 ships were attacked off the Somali coast.

Operations against the pirates have been getting fiercer. Earlier this month, the US navy used snipers to kill three Somali pirates who had been holding an American captain hostage on a lifeboat, while French commandos killed two pirates as they stormed a captured yacht (see picture). Yet within days the pirates were back at work, capturing a string of other vessels.

No surprise, then, that shipowners are hitting back. There are already dozens of small armies for hire around the world: ‘private military corporations’, as the mercenaries have restyled themselves. Now they are looking for another trouble-spot where they can deploy their expertise.

Giants such as Blackwater, the US company with a trigger-happy reputation from Iraq, have fitted out their own patrol boats to escort ships that want some muscle alongside. British firms such as Armor Group and Col Tim Spicer’s Aegis are also in the market. And they have been joined by dozens of smaller players, some well trained, others less so.

Cowling pays experienced men £350 a day for guarding a ship through pirate water; a team leader might get £450 a day. But that is relatively generous. On web boards for marine mercenaries, there are companies paying £120 a day: hardly a fortune when the day’s work might involve a firefight with pirates waving AK-47s, and the risk of six months in some Somali hellhole as a hostage. ‘A lot of guys come out of Iraq and think this is easy money, but they soon find they’re earning every penny,’ says one consultant.

The shipowner’s bill can be hefty. The French security specialist Secopex charges $30,000 for patrol boats crewed by former French naval commandos. One British company charges £2,335 a day for three on-board guards and their sonic equipment, plus £4,500 in travel expenses for each man. For steering a ship safely through the most dangerous waters, the bill can easily run to six figures.

But how effective are these private-sector solutions? The techniques are rough and to the point. Cowling emphasises the deterrent effect. ‘Keep a constant display of force on deck,’ he says. ‘If you do that, you are pretty unlucky if you do get banjoed.’

The pirates have observers, known as ‘dickers’ in the trade, spread along the coast: if they see armed men patrolling the decks of a passing vessel, they know it’s well guarded. Unless they also know there’s something really valuable on board, they will give it a miss.

The security firms also put in plenty of surveillance. It is virtually impossible to board a ship moving at more than 16 knots. If you can monitor the pirates effectively, you can usually accelerate out of trouble. If that doesn’t work — big oil tankers can’t get up to 16 knots — then build in protection. Razor wire can be strung out all around the deck. Guards can equip themselves with Molotov cocktails, glass bottles filled with petrol. Lob those at the side of the ship and you create an instant wall of flame: any pirate trying to climb through it will be in serious trouble.

The controversial issue is firearms. Many of the private security companies would like to carry them. So long as they’re properly licensed, there is nothing illegal about carrying weapons at sea. But shipowners are reluctant. They don’t want to be responsible for small armies — and big insurance claims if men get killed.

‘I’ve carried weapons on yachts travelling through the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden,’ said John Twiss of Maritime & Underwater Security Consultants, one of the best-established firms in the field. ‘I believe the overriding principle is to be unarmed. Unless you arm everyone — and that’s never going to happen — you’re leaving the unarmed vessels open to retaliation. There’ll be an escalation.’

The trouble is, there isn’t much sign of the pirates losing their nerve in the face of present levels of response. Naval patrols are spread thin over a vast area — and even if you get captured by them, so what? The French and the Dutch have taken pirates back to Europe to stand trial, but there are no convictions yet. Captured pirates may simply end up claiming asylum.

Against that backdrop, arming your on-board guards doesn’t look unattractive. In shipping circles, one proposal is for UN-licensed private security forces to guard ships, with the firepower to do so. If public navies can’t secure the sea lanes, maybe it’s time for private ones to have a go.

Matthew Lynn’s thriller Death Force, set in a private military corporation, is published by Headline in June at £6.99.