This story from the South Africa Times, catches my curiosity and may be used as a pretext to attack Iran. This is all the info I have now, but I want to get it out to some of the researchers here.
Pirates die strangely after taking Iranian ship
Andrew Donaldson
Published: Sep 28, 2008A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.
Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.
Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”
The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.
The drama over the Iran Deyanat comes as speculation grew this week about whether the South African Navy would send a vessel to join the growing multinational force in the region.
A naval spokesman, Lieutenant-Commander Greyling van den Berg, told the Sunday Times that the navy had not been ordered by the government to become involved in “the Somali pirate issue”.
About 22000 ships a year pass through the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden, where regional instability and “no-questions-asked” ransom payments have led to a dramatic rise in attacks on vessels by heavily armed Somali raiders in speedboats.
The Iran Deyanat was sailing in those waters on August 21, past the Horn of Africa and about 80 nautical miles southeast of Yemen, when it was boarded by about 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. They were alleged members of a crime syndicate said to be based at Eyl, a small fishing village in northern Somalia.
The ship is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, a state-owned company run by the Iranian military.
According to the US Treasury Department, the IRISL regularly falsifies shipping documents to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments and operates under various covers to circumvent United Nations sanctions.
The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest, it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products” purchased by a German client.
At Eyl, the ship was secured by more pirates — about 50 on board, and another 50 on shore.
But within days those who had boarded the ship developed mysterious health trouble.
This was also confirmed by Hassan Allore Osman, minister of minerals and oil in Puntland, an autonomous region of Somalia.
He headed a delegation sent to Eyl when news of the toxic cargo and illnesses surfaced.
He told one news publication, The Long War Journal, that during the six days he had negotiated with the pirates, a number of them had become sick and died.
“That ship is unusual,” he was quoted as saying. “It is not carrying a normal shipment.”
The pirates did reveal that they had tried to inspect the ship’s cargo containers when some of them fell sick — but the containers were locked.
Osman’s delegation spoke to the ship’s captain and its engineer by cellphone, demanding to know more about the cargo.
Initially it was claimed the cargo contained “crude oil”; later it was said to be “minerals”.
And Mwangura has added: “Our sources say it contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals.”
But IRISL has denied that — and threatened legal action against Mwangura. The company has reportedly paid the pirates 200000 — the first of several “ransom instalments”, but that, too, has been denied.
Interesting. The entity commonly referred to as Osama Bin Laden used the name Tim Osman when he was in the U.S. on CIA business. Osman has an interesting anagram too.
The 1983-built, 44,468 dwt, bulk carrier Iran Deyanat is seen in this photograph while she was anchored near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on April 27th, 1992. She sailed originally as Odinlock (94).
the US and zionists are heavily involved in Somalia and I wouldn't be surprised if these so-called "pirates" are on the CIA payroll.
Perhaps, this is a setup.
___________________________
"Money" has no value - people do.
According to the Iranian press
"The US has offered USD 7m to the pirates, who hijacked an Iranian ship in the Gulf of Aden, to receive entry permission and search the vessel."
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/09/mystery_surrounds_hi.php
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=69066§ionid=351020101
now, if only we could stop them as easily as we can predict what they're up to...
___________________________
"Money" has no value - people do.
95% of Depleted uranium produced to date is stored as uranium hexafluoride, DUF6. It's highly toxic, reacts violently with water and is corrosive to most metals.
or Pollonium?
QRS: I agree - I smell a setup.
The tracking site has taken the ship offline - weird seeing as how it's GPS global sat.
map
Russia is sending ships to "fight piracy" off Somalia!
The map got yanked as soon as I linked to it.
Comments here are worth following
How come the crew didn't develop these mysterious symptons?
After all, they would have been onboard for weeks, not days and subjected to a helluva lot more of whatever it is the media is pushing.
Sounds life a "two-fer."
Get Iran and China in one fell swwop.
If the pirates had opened a container, say a lead lined container, then they might have born the main exposure.
How's this for a scenerio.
Train a bunch of pirates, have them snatch an Iranian ship off Somalia, isolate the crew, plant evidence needed for a charge of nuclear weapon smuggling against Iran OR attempting to supply Hezbollah with radiation contaminants for a dirty bomb attack on ziostan.
Bingo - cover for attack on Iran.
Here's a paragraph from the story i posted after your original:
Once in direct contact, the pirates told Osman that they had attempted to inspect the ship's seven cargo containers after they developed health complications but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the "access codes" and could not open them. The delegation secured contact with the captain and the engineer by cell phone and demanded to know the nature of the cargo, however, Osman says that "they were saying different things to different people." Initially they said that the cargo contained "crude oil" but then claimed it contained "minerals."
Until this story gets disappeared, then the question still has to be raised, how come the crew didn't get sick and die off?
They were on the boat since it left port, so how did they manage to avoid that mysterious ailment?
Maybe the ships cook has a contingency to poison hijackers. Slowly.
Looks like this pirate story is about to get big, with the Pentagon making ominious sounds about the ship.
Nothing like setting fire to a big building to cover up and distract the Keystone Kops while the bank is being robbed.
"..The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest, it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products” purchased by a German client...."
China is the world's largest IMPORTER of iron ore. To my knowledge, they have no iron ore to export. Plus that ship is a cargo container vessel, not an ore shipper.
Maybe FOX news is watshing WUFYS for their news tips!
Here is the picture of the hijacked Iranian ship that FOX news ran from PRESS news
Here is the picture of the ship from The Long War Journal