Pat Dollard

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Those Somali pirates who seized a Ukrainian vessel carrying over 30 Russian T-72 tanks, now have both U.S. and Russian warships bearing down on them, and brother let me tell you…

…their Somali-pirate asses are grass…on the left is the USS Howard and on the right is the Russian frigate Neustrashimy.

In a rare showing of cooperation, several U.S. warships and other foreign vessels are surrounding a Ukrainian vessel seized last week by Somali pirates.

The Ukrainian ship, the Faina, was carrying 33 Russian-built T-72 tanks when it was seized by the pirates on Thursday.

The guided missile destroyer USS Howard anchored in the area Sunday, making sure that the pirates did not remove the tanks, ammunition and other heavy weapons from the ship, which was anchored off the coast. On Monday, more U.S. naval ships and several helicopters arrived off the Horn of Africa.

Russian warship the Neustrashimy, or Intrepid, is also en route to the area, the AFP reported.

The pirates have demanded a $20 million ransom.

Lt. Nathan Christensen, a deputy spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said the shipment of the 33 tanks, rifles and ammunition on the Faina was headed for Sudan — not Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials.

The U.S. fears the armaments onboard the Ukrainian vessel may end up with Al Qaeda-linked Islamic insurgents who have been fighting the shaky U.N.-backed Somali transitional government since late 2006.

“We maintain a vigilant watch over the ship and we will remain on station while negotiations between the pirates and the shipping company are going on,” Christensen told The Associated Press.

Pirates seized the Faina’s Ukrainian, Russian and Latvian crew off Somalia’s lawless coast on Thursday as it headed to Kenya and anchored the vessel off Somalia’s coast near the central town of Hobyo. One crew member died.

Christensen did not specify whether the arms were intended for the Khartoum-based Sudanese government, or southern Sudan, which was granted a degree of autonomy under a 2005 peace deal that also guaranteed the oil-rich region a referendum on full independence in 2011.

The U.N. has imposed an arms embargo on weapons headed to Sudan’s Darfur conflict zone, but the ban does not cover other weapons sales to the Khartoum government or the southern Sudan’s autonomous government.

Kenyan officials on Monday declined to discuss the destination of the weapons. Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Valentyn Mandriyevsky said the ministry was not dealing in weapons trade and didn’t know where the cargo was bound.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s arms trader, Ukrspetexport, had no immediate comment.

Western intelligence reports a few days ago said the ultimate destination was Sudan and that Kenya was only the transshipment point, said one Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing classified material. He said the issue became confused after Kenyan leaders had publicly referred to the tanks as their own.

Christensen said an unspecified number of destroyers and cruisers have joined the San Diego-based USS destroyer Howard within a 10-mile radius of the Faina.

“The safety of the ship’s crew and cargo is a paramount concern to us,” Christensen said, adding additional warships and helicopters were deployed to prevent the weapons from falling “into the wrong hands.”

There have been 24 reported attacks in Somalia this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center. Last year, U.S. naval helicopters fired on pirate skiffs tied to a hijacked Japanese tanker carrying 30,000 tons of benzene after they feared that pirates might try to use it as a floating bomb in a middle eastern oil port.

Seizing ships has become an important source of income for pirates in Somalia, which is riven between rival clan-based warlords since they overthrew a socialist dictator in 1991.

(Fox)