The Firearm Blog

It has been revealed that the US recently shipped 40 tons of small arms and ammunition worth $10 million to supply the Somali government. Reuters reports:

The U.S. government has provided about 40 tons of weapons and ammunition to Somalia’s embattled government in the past six weeks to help it fight Islamist insurgents, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States spent less than $10 million on what he described as small arms and ammunition as well as on payments to other nations to train Somali government forces.

While the State Department confirmed on Thursday that it was providing weaponry to the government, it had not previously provided details on the type, cost or amount.

Since the defeat of the Islamic Courts the impotent government (I use the word lightly as they don’t govern much of the country at all) failed to secure the territory won and another hard-line Islamic group Al-Shabaab rose from the ashes to fill the void. This is the group that recently performed public double amputations (hand and foot) on four thieves in Mogadishu.

The first thing I thought when reading the Reuters article was that Al-Shabaab are sure to try to capture the weaponry. Sure enough, they have just announced that they will. The Associated Press reports:

A spokesman for radical Islamic insurgents says his group will seize weapons the U.S. has supplied to Somalia’s embattled government.

Sheik Hassan Ya’qub of al-Shabab says the weapons shipments will escalate violence in war-wracked country. He was speaking late Sunday in reaction to U.S. officials’ statements last week that the Obama administration was supplying arms and providing military training to the shaky government.

I think training and support from an established foreign conventional force is far more important in a country already swimming in arms that more arms and ammo. It is pretty safe to assume special forces are training government troops, as they are in neighboring Ethiopia. Unfortunately no African countries want to get involved in a war that does directly effect them.

I suspect the US will use the carrot approach to entice Ethiopia to once again enter the country and disrupt the Islamic rebels. Once again Ethiopia will pull out before the government gets a grip on the country. No country want to stick around and suffer from attrition at the hand of insurgents.

Last Friday the Portuguese frigate Corte Real (not be be confused with the ex-USS McCoy Reynolds, which had the same name when it was in Portuguese service) was called to the aid of an oil tanker being attacked by Somali pirates. After foiling the attack, which probably took no more than one burst of their Oerlikon 20mm auto-cannon, they launched a helicopter which followed the small boats back to the mother ship, a fishing boat. The mother ship was boarded and 19 pirates were captured.

These photos from NATO show the weapons captured (click to expand).

Chinese Type 56-2 (AK-47 clone), bunch of other AKs and a Chinese Type 69 RPG


Bored looking guy babysitting rifles


Raise your hands in the air like you just don’t care!

Just the kind of weapons you would expect the pirates to be carrying. Rust prevention does not appear to be a major concern. I would hate to see what condition the bores are in!

Soon after the capture the pirates were released on shore. Under international law pirates can be prosecuted in any country. Unfortunately a “live fire” training opportunity is one thing, but few countries or politician want the expense of pirate filled prisions.

The Royal Navy HMS Cumberland (Type 22 frigate) took on a pirate dhow on the high seas. No prize for guessing who won that fight!

The Times has the story

Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles.

In the ensuing gunfight, two Somali pirates in a Yemeni-registered fishing dhow were killed, and a third pirate, believed to be a Yemeni, suffered injuries and subsequently died. It was the first time the Royal Navy had been engaged in a fatal shoot-out on the high seas in living memory.

By the time the Royal Marines boarded the pirates’ vessel, the enemy had lost the will to fight and surrendered quietly. The Royal Navy described the boarding as “compliant”.

The last time a Type 22 frigate was in “action” was that incident when the the Iranian Revolutionary Guards captured some sailors in the Gulf.