According to the AP, the pirates holding the Faina will not blow up the vessel even if the deadline passes. With the ransom dropping faster than most stock portfolios (maybe in concert with them, with the hijackers tracking the stock value of the insurance company protecting the ship’s owners?), this incident is reading less like Jack Finney’s Assault on a Queen and more like O. Henry’s The Ransom of Red Chief.
Frankly, with a large number of NATO navy vessels in the region along with a Russian deployment, and now with the Indian navy joining the flotilla, the game may be up for these folks. Seizing the Faina may have been one costly mistake that drew so much attention to them that there was no way business as usual could be conducted there anymore. Much like what happened on the Barbary coast once the US decided not to pay tribute to the corsairs, we could be looking at the end of the line for the Somalis going to sea for the sweet trade.
We’d have to see what happens with the end game first, though. If this goes down badly and we end up with a shooting solution, there could well be an extension of hostilities, with more ship seizures fueled by revenge as much as profit, which could make this messy. If there’s a surrender or a clean extraction, then some of the buccaneers there might consider going back to fishing.
James Ryan 