When piracy is on the nightly news and all over the cable news channels, it's becoming a big deal and even the White House and the Pentagon spokesman were talking about it today. This article in the Times Online talks about how difficult any military options are. Indeed. There are reports of 17 ships with over three hundred hostages, I'm guessing these are multiple bands of pirates, now in competition for the money and the women in Somalia, read this article and they discuss how these thugs are becoming the big men on campus. The Indian Navy's ship INS Tabar sunk a pirate mother ship and killed it's crew, good for them. The Brits recently captured more with their Royal Marines seizing a Dhow. Excellent job lads. And it sounds as if the collective world (or at least those with Navy's in the region) is getting fed up with this situation. Don't forget, Blackwater's ship Macarthur is still enroute with Erik Prince saying on today’s news he'll be meeting in London with over 60 companies interested in his services.
One last comment, from an old post at Danger Room, I came across this UN website today with satellite imagery. But what was much more impressive was the development of one page intel products with locations, trends, and explanations. I'm telling you, this is some of the best intel I've seen and kudos to the folks developing this stuff. Take a look at everything from African villages being razed to post Tsunami imagery, but especially the Somalia page here. Check out a couple of their images. Very impressive.