Are Pirates the New Gang?

Everyday there is a growing concern that the high sea's may not be as safe as they once were. The growing group of Pirates coming out of Somalia has more than doubled of the past 18 years. Piracy has been a big issue of the coast of Somalia since the early 90's.

With a country that has raged a civil war within it's own borders since 1991 the government has all but lost complete control of this small state. The war had started with the ousting of President Mohamed Siad Barre.
This led to a uprising to have him reinstated and quickly was followed by a state of anarchy. As the growing concern that Somalia was going to soon become a country of who is running whom many efforts were made to re-establish a democracy through out the state and government. The help has came from everyone from the United States and the United Nations in the 90's which as well led to the Battle of Mogadishu which left 31 Americans dead and numerous UN soldiers dead. The National Defense Focus of Ethiopia was later involved from 2006 - 2009.

So are these pirates that we see on the news dangerous? The answer is followed by their actions. In the beginning only small trader ships were abducted and at the time it seemed that they were making political statements in retaliation to embargo's set on Somalia. Now the stakes have been raised to everything from cruise ships to chemical tankers to oil tankers which could lead to numerous ecological disasters.

One would ask why has it been so hard to capture and put a stop to the pirates. One big reason is the recruiting. As the news televises the treasures seized by these thieves of the sea there are many teenage kids through out the Somali State the are actually intrigued by the money and the girls and the weapons that are now owned by the pirates. So in focus this mixture of 16 to 30 year old robbers are becoming the new gang of many who want things the cheap and easy way. Many teens in the region view the pirates as the rock stars of robbers which makes recruiting easy. The big problem still remains that these people are capturing items now that makes them a larger threat everyday. This would lead one to believe that a much larger force is pulling the strings behind these pirates. Not just the effort of financing rebels in a civil war.

When you go from transport ships to oil tankers there is obviously a reason to gain more money with either ransom or selling. Could they be living above their means and just need more spending money? Doubtful.
There has to be a larger underlying purpose and nations need to once again combine efforts to search it out before many become the result of a much larger scale refinanced force.