Shabaab-Somali pirate links growing - U.N. adviser - RTRS
Today 16:34
Al Shabaab seeking funds from pirate ransoms Puntland aiming to create counter piracy force
By Jonathan Saul and Camila Reed
LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Cooperation between Somalia's al Qaeda linked militants and pirate gangs is growing as the al Shabaab group becomes more desperate for funding, the head of the U.N.'s counter-piracy unit said on Thursday.
In recent days Kenya launched a cross-border incursion into Somalia to flush out rebels from its frontier area after a series of kidnappings of foreigners in Kenya. The abductions were carried out by gunmen thought to be linked to al Shabaab.
"There is a growing link and growing cooperation between al Shabaab who are desperate for funding and resources with other criminal gangs and with pirates," said Colonel John Steed.
Steed, the principal military adviser to the U.N. special envoy to Somalia and head of the envoy's counter-piracy unit, said pirates were not part of al Shabaab.
"Pirates are one of those potential sources of large amounts of money so there a natural linkage between Shabaab's desire for funding to support their activities and money that pirates are getting from ransoms," he told Reuters Insider TV on the sidelines of a piracy conference in London.
The President of the semi-autonomous Somali state of Puntland Abdirahman Mohamud Farole believed the two had links.
"We are almost sure about that otherwise in the Shabaab held areas pirates will not operate," he told Insider.