The Gulf of Aden has been vulnerable to piracy since 2008 when pirates escalated hijack and ransom attempts on merchant ships. Ransom demands skyrocketed to millions of dollars. But after a robust response from the international community the piracy menace was brought under control, like reported by theneweuropean.co.uk.

The world heard little about piracy for years but media outlets are this year reporting that the Somali pirates are back. In May and June they hijacked fishing vessels that were sailing off the north-eastern coastal region of Somalia of Puntland.

Historically, stopping pirates has always been difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the pirates of the 21st century have proved no exception.

Despite an anti-piracy onslaught led by the US and the EU that included naval patrols and criminal prosecution, the international community has been unable to deter young Somali men from taking ships at sea.

By 2011 shipowners began to employ privately contracted armed guards at considerable personal expense. The threat of armed resistance reduced the incidence of successful hijacks but didn’t eliminate them.

Piracy continued to thrive because the Somali state had failed to exert control over its citizens. Every effort it made to suppress insurgency was only temporarily effective.

The history of piracy demonstrates that it can be managed – but only by a strong state. The pirates that unleashed terror across the English Channel in the 16th century disappeared after a strong push back from the government.

And the pirates who disrupted trade off the coast of 19th century Morocco gradually stopped operations as the Sultan exerted greater control over remote regions.

But these victories were decades in the making.

For more than 25 years Somalis have had bigger problems than a few hundred men hijacking foreign ships. Even before the state collapsed in 1991 they had endured widespread corruption, violence and persistent drought and famine.

While the absence of state institutions, including active security forces and a coastguard, contributed to the rise of piracy, it doesn’t explain why it only started to accelerate in 2008.

For decades the international community has insisted that Somalia must be rebuilt into a centralised state to be functional. But the country is actually a configuration of multiple, clan-aligned regions with varying levels of control and authority.

This is not to say that Somali clans have not united before. With the backing of considerable resources from the Soviet Union, the military regime of Siad Barre in the 1970s managed to bring the country together under the common goal of unity for communities that had been divided by European colonialism.

But when Barre tried to reinforce this unity by invading Ethiopia in 1978, the devastating and humiliating loss severed the fragile Somali unity and divided the clans, eventually contributing to the collapse of the state.

New Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed faces the unprecedented task of finding a way to unify the country without military force.

As piracy escalated in 2008, the capital Mogadishu descended into chaos as a war began between the Transitional Federal Government, the Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab, and various interest groups, including Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The warring parties had neither the inclination nor the resources to intervene against the pirate attacks because control of the capital was at stake.

Besides, the pirates came from Puntland, a comparatively peaceful region with a relatively functional local government, judiciary and security force.

The key to stopping the pirates lay with persuading Puntland authorities to dissuade their citizens from piracy. Puntland is made up of a coalition of sub-groups from the Darod clan.

The Puntland pirates maintain that illegal fishing by foreigners pushed them to take up arms to protect their territorial waters, and to demand compensation. But it wasn’t too long before the willingness of foreign shipowners to pay ransoms attracted Somalia’s organised crime network. Very quickly piracy became big business.

For years, the financial proceeds of piracy benefited the Darod clan. Pirates were recruited from within the clan and their collaboration fuelled the success of the hijack and ransom model. Proceeds were distributed equitably among clan members.

Meanwhile, the international community was prioritising the war against piracy. But the naval intervention and criminal prosecution model wasn’t working. The more prudent thing to do would have been to provide the people of Puntland with the right financial incentives to end their dependency on piracy for income.

In April 2014, the United Nations took the financial incentives route by opening a prison in Garowe, the capital of Puntland. It was set up to house convicted pirates including those who had been repatriated from other jurisdictions. In return, Puntland passed the anti-piracy legislation and entered into prisoner transfer agreements with the UN in return for funding.

As more and more pirates were arrested, the international community and Somali diaspora helped fund an education centre in Garowe to teach them engineering and woodwork as alternative livelihoods to piracy.

In the wake of these interventions the sea-crime menace declined rapidly.

But in recent weeks Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for several bombings in Garowe. The attacks came as Puntland forces were engaged in an ongoing border dispute with Somaliland.

With authorities and security forces distracted elsewhere, pirates seized the opportunity to strike again. In March, they hijacked their first ship in five years. It was released two days later. In May, pirates hijacked a South Korean vessel off the Somali coast – it remains at large. They also fired on a Greek oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, but were driven off by onboard security.

In this kind of volatile climate, it is clear that despite renewed support from the international community, especially the United Arab Emirates, the government in Puntland is nowhere near strong enough to exert control over its inhabitants to override the desire for profit through piracy.

When it comes to Somalia the international community needs to understand that it may take Puntland and the greater Somalia a lot longer than a few years to purge the piracy menace for good. Helping to build a state strong enough to manage the scourge would be a good start.

The bodies of eight Malian soldiers killed in an ambush by Islamist fighters last week have been discovered in the West African nation’s desert north, a local lawmaker and army officer said, according to voanews.com.

The soldiers went missing a week ago after their convoy was attacked on the road between the towns of Gao and Menaka.

“They were killed in the fighting last week … There are eight of them. I have two nephews who were killed,” said Badian Ag Hamatou, a member of parliament from Menaka. “They were encircled by the jihadists.”

A senior army officer, who asked not to be named, said a team sent to the scene had been able to identify the bodies as those of the missing soldiers. They were buried where they were found, he said.

Malian soldiers are regularly targeted in attacks by Islamist groups, some of them with links to al-Qaida.

Islamist fighters seized northern Mali in 2012 before they were driven back by a French-led military intervention a year later. But they remain active despite the presence of a U.N. peacekeeping mission and a 4,000-troop cross-border French operation to stamp them out.

Leaders of five countries in West Africa’s Sahel region launched a multinational force this month with a primary mission of tackling the Islamist militants, who have spread their violence beyond Mali’s borders to neighboring states.

A female suicide bomber struck early Monday morning, killing 10 worshipers who came for prayers at a mosque in Maiduguri, Borno state, like reported by thebreakingtimes.com.

This is the latest in a spate of suicide bombings since the release of some commanders of Boko Haram in exchange for some of the kidnapped Chibok girls.

The conflict in Mali is spilling over to Burkina Faso and Niger, with a significant surge of attacks by extremist groups in border areas over past months, the UN envoy for West Africa warned.

Mohamed Ibn Chambas said deadly attacks along border areas were having an impact on the local economy in the northern provinces of Burkina Faso and western regions of Niger.

“In the Sahel, persistent instability in Mali is spilling over to Burkina Faso and Niger, with deadly attacks along border areas,” Chambas told the UN Security Council.

The Liptako Gourma region, which encompasses the border areas of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, “has seen a significant expansion of violent extremist and terrorist activities in the past months, including coordinated cross-border attacks against security posts and ransacking of border settlements,” he said.

Drug smugglers, human traffickers and arms peddlers crisscross borders, establishing a tentative presence before moving to new zones of operation, said Chambas.

The Security Council last month adopted a French-drafted resolution that welcomed the deployment of a 5,000-strong force set up by the three countries along with Mauritania and Chad to fight jihadists in the region.

But that resolution fell short of a full UN authorization after the United States raised objections amid concerns that UN member-states would need to provide funding for the Sahel force.

In his remarks, Chambas said the countries of the Sahel are in need of “more support” to confront growing concerns over security.

In January, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger agreed to pool their military and intelligence resources to address the cross-border crime, setting up a joint force in parallel with the Sahel operation.

The United Nations has 12,500 troops and police serving in the MINUSMA force in Mali, considered the world body’s most dangerous peacekeeping mission.

France maintains 4,000 troops in the five Sahel countries as part of a counter-terror force deployed since its 2013 military intervention in Mali to drive out jihadist groups.

In 2012, Mali’s north fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda who exploited an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising.

While the Islamists were largely ousted by the French-led military operation, attacks have continued on civilians, the Malian army as well as French and UN forces.

Thirteen al-Shabab militants were killed in an apparent joint attack by U.S. and Somali government forces near Kismayo, a Somali official said according to voanews.com.

The U.S. Africa Command released a statement Wednesday saying that “working from actionable intelligence,” American forces conducted “a successful collective self-defense strike operation against an al-Shabab troop cooperation” early Wednesday, Somali time.

The statement said the units and assets involved would not be identified to ensure operational security.

However, a Somali military source said U.S. helicopters carried Somali special forces to the site of the attack, about 500 kilometers south of Mogadishu, and fired on the militants during the battle.

The deputy commander of Somalia’s national security agency in the Lower Jubba region, Ahmed Abdullahi Issa, said Somali forces launched the attack after learning that the militants were planning to attack their base.

“They were about 100 militias who were gathering in a jungle area, and we targeted them,” he told journalists. “We foiled their attack. We killed 13 and wounded 10 others.”

Authorities displayed the bodies of the dead militants Wednesday in Kismayo.

Local security sources told VOA Somali that al-Shabab militants had attacked the Somali military base first but had been repelled. After driving back the militants, government forces called for reinforcements and attacked the militants’ hideout, sources said.

A contingent of U.S. advisers based in Somalia has been helping to train Somali army troops.

Meanwhile, at least two Kenyan police officers were killed and seven others were missing after an attack on a police outpost in Pandanguo, Lamu county, near Kenya’s border with Somalia.

Al-Shabab militants claimed responsibility for the attack and said they had “overrun” the outpost.

Somali government forces and African Union troops are trying to diminish al-Shabab’s capabilities ahead of the AU mission’s withdrawal from Somalia, scheduled to begin next year.

Nevertheless, al-Shabab continues to stage frequent, deadly attacks in Somalia and neighboring Kenya.

‘Lack of resources’

Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire defended his government’s security strategy in an interview with VOA Somali on Tuesday.

“We have mobilized our military, men and women in the uniform who are doing an outstanding job, and I think we have already made progress,” he said from Addis Ababa, where he was attending an African Union summit.

Asked how the government was dealing with al-Shabab, Khaire said, “We are going to do what we are doing. We are fighting them every day. … We are very serious.”

Despite all the security challenges, Khaire said lack of resources was the main challenge facing his government.

“Without security you cannot create jobs, you cannot grow the economy, you cannot build the morale of the people, you cannot develop a nation — but lack of resources is the biggest issue that Somalia faces,” he said.

“A government’s legitimacy is to provide services to its people, and to provide services you need resources,” he said. “Somalia doesn’t have these resources as of today.”

The amount of direct aid given to the Somali government is very small, according to a recent report. The report by a special committee comprising the Somali government and donor organizations, published in April, said that aid flows to Somalia totaled an estimated $5.4 billion over the past three years. But only $158 million of that amount, about 3 percent of the overall aid, went directly to the Somali government.

The report urged the government to increase its revenue from sources other than customs duties collected at Mogadishu’s main airport and seaport.

There are two principal foreign actors operating in the Sahel: the EU and the United States. President Obama took considerable interest in Africa, just like his predecessor George W. Bush who allocated billions of dollars for President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which provided antiretroviral treatment and care for HIV/AIDS patients, overseeing such initiatives as Power Africa, like reported by aspistrategist.org.au. This was a $7 billion program aimed at doubling access to electricity across sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, Obama also authorised a greater US military presence in the Africa by dispatching drones, special forces and private contractors to the area with the aim of countering the presence of salafi–jihadi groups.

It’s safe to assume that President Trump is unlikely to have a great interest in Africa, although three of the countries on his proposed travel ban list are African: Libya, Somalia and Sudan. Trump’s foreign policy agenda, such as it is, focuses more on the Middle East, and specifically on the Islamic State as it operates in Iraq and Syria, which it seeks to annihilate. Moreover, the Trump State Department has been marginalised: hundreds of posts remain vacant, primarily because the administration hasn’t nominated anyone for the various positions that are available within the department. Additionally, the Trump administration appears committed to massive budget reductions, which includes eliminating such entities as the African Development Foundation, a government agency that provides grants to support community enterprises and small businesses across Africa. In 2016, the foundation supported 500 businesses that generated US$80 million in new economic activity.

In respect of the Sahel, recent reports suggest that US diplomats, with support from the UK, resisted a UN Security Council resolution authorising a West African force to counter terrorism and trafficking. Official it seems that American opposition to the resolution is based on the claim he draft French resolution was unwarranted and too broad, although one should add that the US is seeking to have a reduction in the $7.8 billion UN peacekeeping budget, to which is contributes 28.57%.

One of the major concerns about the Sahel is climate change, which means that it’s becoming harder for people to extract a livelihood from the earth. For example, Gnagna Province in eastern Burkina Faso has seen an increase in dust storms, a decline of 200 mm in annual rainfall in the past 30 years, and an increase in the average temperature in the region. Diawari Barbibilé, a local farmer, notes that in the 2000s he could harvest ‘five cartloads’ of grain, but in 2015 he brings in barely two cartloads. This decline means that he and his family have very little to live on.

Consequently, as the ability of people to forge a living from traditional sources declined, they turned to non-conventional, often illegal avenues, such as cooperating with criminal organisations that smuggle goods and people, as well as with militant groups, which provide salaries to members.

The Islamic State theology has little appeal in the Sahel, as the Islam practised in the region is manifestly different from the Islam practised in the Middle East. However, there’s some evidence of Saudi presence in the region, which has led to suggestions that the region is adopting a Wahhabist/Salafist Islam. The salafi-Wahhabi influence is seen with Al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram, both of which are designated foreign terrorist organisations and whose leaders have taken the bay’ah (an oath of allegiance) to the Islamic State.

Strong military tactics—specifically, annihilation—are unlikely to work in the Sahel, as innocent civilians are harmed when such tactics are carried out by local militaries and militias, leading to more tensions between local communities, militaries and foreign actors. Moreover, armed jihadists are moving to the countryside, where they find it easier to move around, to establish relations with local communities and launch attacks against urban centres and government forces. For example, the International Crisis Group has noted that repeated attacks in and around Gao, Mopti and Timbuktu in Mali have meant that government forces and African Union peacekeepers are devoting more time to protecting the cities, leading to a substantial reduction in forward operating bases.

Brigadier General Donald C. Bolduc, the head of US Special Operations Command Africa, has focused his attention on training local forces to ‘act properly’ and not kill indiscriminately. General Thomas D. Waldhauser, the fourth commander of US Africa Command, has testified that ‘the greatest threat to US interests emanating from Africa is violent extremist organizations’, although he also noted that taking out jihadists doesn’t end the problem, as ‘by the end of the week, so to speak, those ranks would be filled.’

However, without political support from Washington and a disorganised US State Department, it’s unlikely that the US can and will sustain its soft footprint in Africa, especially as many of Trump’s senior commanders and advisers, such as retired Marine Corps general Jim Mattis and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster are veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, where there was a growing reliance on special forces. That would allow the EU, which has an operation in Niger and Mali as well as expansive aid and humanitarian operations in Chad, to assume more of a leadership position.

One can’t underestimate the importance of the European presence in Mali: from a purely geographical perspective, Mali lies at the heart of Africa and is the preferred route for traversing from east to west, whereas movement from the west to northern Africa requires one to go through Mali. Consequently, it does appear that the Europeans, who developed a policy strategy towards the Sahel—the EU Sahel Strategy—are committed to the security and development of the region.

Residents of a village in southeast Niger said Tuesday that Boko Haram Islamic extremists had killed at least nine people and taken some 40 others hostage in a brazen attack over the weekend, like reported by cbsnews.com.

Adam Babakarna said the attackers arrived on camels and horses late Sunday, shooting in all directions in NGalewa, about 44 miles east of the city of Diffa. He said the Islamic extremists took mostly women and children hostage and threatened to hold them until other extremists are released from prison.

“Boko Haram elements… slit the throats of nine people… they took women, 37 women, and departed with them,” Diffa Governor Laouali Mahamane Dan Dano, told Niger’s state TV. He said security forces “are already in pursuit, and we hope that in the coming days these women will be found and freed.”

Niger contributes to the multinational force set up to fight Boko Haram in the region.

Nigeria-based Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency has killed at least 20,000 people. The group has pledged allegiance to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

In May, five Boko Haram commanders were released in exchange for the freedom of 82 schoolgirls from the northern Nigerian town of Chibok, after more than three years held in captivity by the Islamic militants.

Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014, bringing the extremist group’s deadly rampage in northern Nigeria to the world’s attention. A first group of 21 girls was freed in October 2016 and they have been in government care since then, despite calls by families and human rights groups for them to be released to their loved ones.

The group of 82 released in May also remains in government care.

The U.S. military says it has carried out an airstrike against al-Shabab in Somalia as the Trump administration quietly steps up efforts against the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa, like reported by ap.org.

Pentagon spokeswoman Maj. Audricia M. Harris said the strike occurred Sunday afternoon Somalia time and the U.S. was assessing the results.

She did not call it a drone strike. Somali officials have said the U.S. has carried out several drone strikes in recent years against the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab.

The airstrike follows one in June that the U.S. said killed eight Islamic extremists at a rebel command and logistics camp in the country’s south. Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed said Somali and partner forces destroyed the training camp near Sakow, in the Middle Juba region.

President Donald Trump has approved expanded military operations against al-Shabab, including more aggressive airstrikes and considering parts of southern Somalia areas of active hostilities. The U.S. in April announced it was sending dozens of regular troops to Somalia in the largest such deployment there in roughly two decades, saying it was for logistics training of Somalia’s army.

The Horn of Africa nation is trying to rebuild after more than two decades as a failed state, and its chaos helped in the rise of al-Shabab. Now a new threat has emerged in the country’s north with fighters claiming alliance to the Islamic State group.

Al-Shabab last year became the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa, with more than 4,200 people killed in 2016, according to the Washington-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies. The extremist group has vowed to step up attacks after the recently elected government launched a new military offensive against it.

Pressure is growing on Somalia’s military to assume full responsibility for the country’s security. The 22,000-strong African Union multinational force, AMISOM, which has been supporting the fragile central government, plans to start withdrawing in 2018 and leave by the end of 2020.

The U.S. military has been among those expressing concern that Somalia’s forces are not yet ready.

The proliferation of suicide attacks in some localities in the Far North Region has led a senior Cameroonian army officer to suspect a great complicity between some inhabitants in a war zone and terrorists in Boko Haram, like reported by lcclc.info.

In the evening of yesterday, Monday, July 03, 2017, another suicide bombing was recorded in Homaka, a locality in the Mora subdivision of the Far North region. According to sources at the Ministry of Defense, a suicide bomber exploded his bomb in the middle of a group of people, killing four people. There are also about ten wounded who were transported to the Mora hospital.

A few hours before the suicide bombing, suspected Boko haram terrorists launched an attack on a Cameroon army military post from their base in neighboring Nigeria with the aim of making carnage. Operation missed thanks to a prompt reaction of the valiant Cameroonian soldiers.

The official record of these terrorist attacks and the reaction of the authorities are awaited. However, during a recent weekly broadcast by the Ministry of Defense (Mindef) broadcast at the national radio station of Cameroon from Yaoundé, Colonel Didier Badjeck, Head of the Mindef Communication Division, suspected a complicity between some Civilian populations in war zones and terrorists of Boko haram.

These suspicions cause the defense and security forces to organize regular round-ups in localities that frequently suffer the exactions of the Islamist sect of Nigerian origin.