Somalia: Who are the pirates fighting? Who is fighting the pirates?

Somali politics are complicated by the fact that the northern part of the country consists of two entities, one of which (Somaliland) seeks full independence–sort of like Kosovo–and the other (Puntland) seeks to enjoy full autonomy while remaining tied to the central government–sort of like Iraqi Kurdistan. It would be fair to ask: what central government? Somalia's central government is among the most dysfunctional on the planet, and has not been able to exert full control over the entire country since civil war broke out in 1991. The current incarnation has just disintegrated, with President Abdullahi Yusuf resigning just after firing the elected Prime Minister, his replacement Prime Minister resigning immediately subsequent, and the military troops from neighboring Ethiopia that have been propping the government up committed to expeditious withdrawal. Against this backdrop, it is easy to understand how a country with almost 2000 miles of coastline could support a thriving subculture of piracy. But who are these pirates, and why are Western nations so concerned about them? Writing for the Independent (UK), columnist Johann Hari reveals that, contrary to the Western image of greedy and unscrupulous monsters bent on wanton destruction and torture of innocents, many of the Somali pirates are, in their way, defending their homeland against two egregious forms of exploitation: stealing their countrymen's principal livelihood of fishing, and dumping vast amounts of toxic waste in their territorial waters. But the highest-profile target of Somali pirates is the petroleum shipping lane, which happens to pass right off their northern coastline. The majority of hijackings involve fishing boats and cargo ships with "unspecified" cargoes–which correspondent Hari informs us often consist of highly toxic chemicals destined for the bottom of the sea off Somalia's coast–but the few we hear about in Western media are the oil tankers. To combat the disruptions in shipping petroleum products, dumping of toxic chemicals, and stealing of Somali fishermen's livelihood, Western powers have recently agreed to step up military intervention both offshore and onshore. To that end, the Associated Press reports that the US Navy will lead a new task force, under Rear Adm. Terence E. McKnight, to "help deter attacks" in the "pirate infested waters" off Somalia's coast. It comes as no surprise that a new figure has stepped into the vacuum left by the departing President Yusuf, in the person of Abdirahman Mohamud Farole, who has just been elected by the Parliament of semi-independent Puntland as the region's new President. Chances are that he will exert significantly more influence in that "pirate infested" region than his countryman Yusuf did in Mogadishu. He is the former Finance Minister of Puntland, and a banker by trade, with a history of collusion with Western commercial interests.