Horror on the High Seas

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For those seeking to cause mayhem on the high seas, the waters off Somalia are among the world's most alluring. Somalia has lacked an effective central government for 14 years, and the U.S. believes that al-Qaeda--linked militants operate there. Combined Task Force 150, a multinational naval unit, patrols in the nearby Gulf of Aden and the waters around the Horn of Africa, searching for suspected terrorists who may be moving equipment or people by sea or planning a maritime attack. But with its attention focused on stopping terrorists, the U.S. Navy has been hesitant about pursuing pirates who roam the area. Commander Jeff Breslau, a U.S. Navy spokesman in Bahrain, says coalition forces will help ships in distress but "the focus is not on piracy or maritime crime."

The U.S. believes the attack on the Spirit was carried out by pirates trying to loot the ship, rather than terrorists targeting its Western passengers. But the incident shows that pirates and terrorists share a willingness to use deadly force to achieve their aims. And since pirates make more money--the three big gangs of pirates suspected of working Somali waters now demand and often receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom, according to the Piracy Reporting Center's Choong--they are likely to go after bigger game. With their kidnapping revenues, pirates "can afford to buy themselves some pretty nice boats," says Choong, and hence extend the range of their seizures.

Sellathurai Mahalingam knows how brazen Somali pirates have become. Mahalingam is the captain of the MV Semlow, which was attacked in late June as it carried 850 tons of rice from the World Food Program (WFP) that was destined for hungry Somalis. Now back in his home country of Sri Lanka, Mahalingam, 58, related to TIME the saga of his 101-day ordeal as a captive of Somali pirates. It began, he says, with "the flash of 5 to 10 shots. Straightaway I knew it must be pirates." Before he could issue a distress signal, three fiber-glass speedboats with powerful outboard motors pulled alongside the Semlow. The pirates hooked a small metal ladder to the ship and scrambled aboard. "There were 15 to 20 men wearing shorts and T shirts," says Mahalingam. Those who boarded were barefoot but carrying pistols, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The pirates rushed to the bridge, where in halting English they quizzed Mahalingam and his nine-man crew--eight Kenyans and a Tanzanian--about their religion and told them they were being taken hostage. They told the captain his was the 20th ship they had hijacked this year.

The pirates stole $8,500 from Mahalingam's safe and forced the crew to set a course toward the central Somali town of Ceel Huur, where the Semlow dropped anchor within sight of land. "I told the pirates that we were carrying cargo that belonged to all Somalians," says Mahalingam. "I said, 'This is for your own people. Why are you doing this?'" Three days after the hijacking, the answer became clear. The pirates contacted the Semlow's owner, Inayet Kudrati, 54, director of the Motaku Shipping Agency based in Mombasa, and demanded that he pay a $500,000 ransom for the ship and crew. "I told them I didn't have that kind of money," says Kudrati, speaking to TIME two weeks ago.

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