Issue 898

Hostis Humani Generis and the Houthis in the Red Sea

The great Roman lawyer and statesman Cicero, in his work De Officiis (The Duties), reflected that a "pirate is the enemy of all." Beyond a pithy line, the concept established a legal precedent in Roman law that would later influence modern international statutes, providing the basis for pursuing pirates across the high seas as an early form of universal jurisdiction. Cicero's argument held that pirates were outside the territory of a sovereign power and no formal adversaries of a particular state, and so instead deemed them 'hostis humani generis' — or rather, the "enemies of all mankind." Looking out at the pack of multinational naval deployments across the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean, intended to combat piracy—as well as the Yemen-based Ansar Allah movement—one might argue that Cicero's comments feel all too relevant today.

But taking a tongue-in-cheek analysis of Cicero's famous line is that in Somalia, not all pirates are enemies. Take the notorious pirate commander, Mohamed Abdi Afweyne, who was once appointed presidential adviser and given a Somali diplomatic passport, while keeping several ships and their crews hostage. Another well-known pirate financier today is Fu'ad Hanaano, who hails from the Darood/Harti/Warsangeli and has been responsible for several pirate attacks launched from Sanaag near Laas Qooray. Though Hanaano refutes all ties to piracy and arms smuggling, his name still routinely surfaces in reports linking him to the financing of Pirate Action Groups (PAGs). Hanaano also happens to command around 200 men under the auspices of Puntland's Daraawiish paramilitary forces, and has been involved in the anti-Daesh offensive Operation Hilaac in the Cal-Miskaad Mountains this year. One more emblematic character is Issa Yullux, a former pirate-turned arms dealer, who the US government has designated for links to terrorism due to his relationship with Islamic State-Somalia (ISS). Yullux, too, has commanded Puntland forces in anti-ISS operations. The incestuous nature of piracy and, particularly, smuggling within Puntland's economy and security architecture is impossible to ignore. A pirate yesterday is a partner tomorrow.

Ties between the incumbent Puntland administration and former pirates are no coincidence. Although President Sa'id Deni has made it a priority to disrupt pirate and smuggling networks, the tyranny of geography —particularly Puntland’s proximity to Yemen —and the enticing patronage that flows from these historical trafficking routes remain difficult to break apart. Puntland, though, is not keen to endure a resurgence of piracy along its coastline, and successive administrations have sought to diminish the environment in which these PAGs can flourish. The triangular smuggling routes between Iran, Yemen and Somalia, on the other hand, be it of people, arms, sanctioned Iranian fuel, or contraband, continue to thrive off the ungoverned coastal spaces in parts of Bari and eastern Sanaag, with Al-Shabaab and the Houthis exploiting these gaps in turn. Puntland's imminent Operation Onkod, intended to dislodge Al-Shabaab from their mountain fortresses in Cal Madow, will likely face an even more complex prospect of stymying the flow of contraband dhows around Laas Qooray.

But more pragmatically, piracy off Somalia, though substantially diminished, does rise during the calmer maritime seasons. And it has surged back into the headlines in recent weeks, with a PAG conducting several probing advances towards vessels from late October onwards, when the UKMTO monitoring authority first issued a warning of "suspicious activity" 106 nautical miles south of Eyl involving two dhows. Several other approaches were reported in the subsequent days, with one skiff approaching the Cayman Islands-flagged tanker MV Stolt Sagaland on 3 November, firing on the vessel before retreating. Most significant, though, came on 6 November, when 8 Somali pirates were able to briefly seize a ship carrying fuel and small arms in the international waters of the Indian Ocean. The Malta-registered Hellas Aphrodite was reportedly en route to Durban in South Africa when boarded, with the pirates armed with AK-47s, PKMs, and RPGs, using Iranian fishing boats as support vessels. 

Two dozen crew members barricaded themselves within the 'citadel' —a fortified safe room for these emergencies —while the pirates were unable to break in, leaving them to disembark. Four days later, on 11 November, EUNAVOR declared that its forces had "disrupted" the PAG following the boarding of the Yemeni mothership in the wake of the pirates abandoning the vessel. Two names in particular have now surfaced in connection with the spate of hijackings, the first being Mohamed Aden Baadi (Majeerteen/Isse Mahmoud/Yoonis Idris), a known financier and senior figure within piracy networks active along the Puntland and Galmudug coastlines. The second is another financier, identified as Saciid (among other aliases), who was previously involved in organising ship hijackings in the past two years. While increased naval patrols and the use of onboard security personnel, among other practices, diminished the threat of piracy in the 2010s, the third principal element has been the aggressive investigation and prosecution of the financiers and leadership behind acts of piracy. Financing PAGs is not cheap, and uncovering those who are stumping up the cash is key.

Yet there is hardly a dearth of military activity in the Red Sea today, with the aortic waterway a site of bristling geostrategic competition by, among others, ascendant Gulf powers flexing their muscle in their perceived 'backyard.' Offshore, Somali pirates are one concern, of course, with EUNAVFOR's Operation Atalanta to combat such threats active since 2008, but the more pressing issue for maritime security remains that of the Houthis, who have targeted dozens of merchant vessels with kamikaze drones and missiles in the past two years. With the Red Sea considered the most strategic waterway for global shipping, between 12-15% of annual cargo traverses through the narrow strip, these twin threats remain very much alive in Western capitals. However, the heavily militarised response of the US and Israel to date has failed to quell the Houthi threat, not least its much-overlooked clandestine penetration of the Somali peninsula.

Borrowing another famous piracy quote from one of the greatest 16th-century English privateers (and heroes), Sir Francis Drake, was that "it is not the man but the cause that makes the pirate." Though Drake was surely justifying his own plundering of Spanish vessels laden with silver from their South American colonies, it is a helpful turn of phrase in relation to the stark difference between the Ansar Allah interdiction of vessels and those of Somali pirates today. PAGs, fundamentally, should be understood in a financially motivated context, with their financiers and disaffected youth interested in the monetary gain if a ransom can be secured. Offering job opportunities to youth in peripheral communities in Puntland and political clout to their elders has thus helped subdue the threat of piracy. But the Iranian-backed Houthis' motivations and strategic interests, bluntly, are far more complicated, with the reasons for interdicting and striking vessels transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden partially motivated by their antagonism towards Israel and its Western allies, as well as proving a rallying cry to the Arab world through their perceived solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Nevertheless, a substantial cross-pollination between the well-armed Houthis and pirate networks along the Somali peninsula, particularly in the coastline of contested Sanaag, has occurred in the past year. Independent of its ties with Al-Shabaab and the much-diminished ISS, the Houthis have armed and trained hundreds of young Somalis, including in maritime interdiction. Further, the Houthis have sought to tie themselves to former pirate networks as well, explicitly seeking out disenchanted men with nautical experience. And so by exploiting grievances among marginalised clans such as the Warsangeli, they have forged a considerable latent threat capacity, with dormant forces instructed to target Western-flagged vessels transiting through the Gulf of Aden in the future.

Tackling this incipient challenge will surely prove politically more demanding than suppressing piracy in the heyday of 2009-2013, with it tying into the Yemeni conflict, the Iranian 'Axis of Resistance,' Somalia's weak state capacity, and Israel's war on Gaza. But it speaks to a broader issue as well-- the violent geostrategic tussle for control over the littoral administrations on either side of the Red Sea, which has drawn in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Türkiye, among others, to the detriment of peace and security in the Horn of Africa. Clearly, the 'gunboat diplomacy' that has sought to sideline the instability in Yemen, Somalia, or Sudan is no longer tenable, with inland violence again spilling over into offshore concerns. 

For decades, the US has been 'securing the seas', spending vast fortunes on its aircraft carriers and naval capabilities to protect shipping lanes and, of course, project force. But there is a long overdue conversation about maritime security and sea lanes protection in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden that goes far beyond simply deterring attacks on ships-- be it from Somali pirates or Yemeni Houthis-- and unpacking how Middle Eastern powers are pursuing their destabilising, competing interests along the waterway. If Cicero cast pirates as enemies of all mankind, Drake reminded us that it is the cause that makes them so. Today's maritime insecurity, be it smuggling in Sanaag or Houthi drones over the Red Sea, will endure until those causes on land are confronted with the same vigour as the symptoms at sea.

The Somali Wire Team