Tuesday Map: Pirates sail the seven seas

Tue, 11/18/2008 - 6:17pm

The International Chamber of Commerce's Commercial Crime Services have created a live map showing pirate attacks around the world, as they are reported to the International Martime Bureau. The map shows only attacks from 2008:

As you can see, the gulf of Aden, where a Saudi oil tanker was hijacked by Somali pirates yesterday, is by far the world's most dangerous area for pirate activity. It's hardly the only hotspot, though. West Africa and Indonesia also have a troublingly large pirate problem.

ICC-CSS (Screenshot)

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WHAT?!?!

by kidzib on Wed, 11/19/2008 - 6:35am

No attacks off the coast of Penzance?!?! I'm SOOOOOOOO disappointed!

Nice map

by jgarzik on Wed, 11/19/2008 - 8:40pm

Thanks, for providing maps that are interactive.

You should make that a standard editorial policy, both for this blog and for online versions of ForeignPolicy.com articles.

Down with boring maps, I say!

Jeff @ Armchair FP (back from Zagreb)

Oh, nevermind, it isn't

by jgarzik on Wed, 11/19/2008 - 8:42pm

Oh, nevermind, it isn't interactive. I posted too soon.

Slackers :) This is the Web, we demand interactive content, especially maps that can be made as large as a browser window with a single click of the mouse...

Tough critic!

by Joshua Keating on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 12:53pm

I just posted a screenshot, Jeff. Click the link over the link to head over to CSS's site and interact to your heart's content.

Yemen?

by scorad on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 12:11pm

So looking at this map, it seems like the majority of attacks happen closer to Yemen than Somalia. This may just be an artifact of everyone avoiding the Somali coast like the plague, but I still find it interesting that the standard story we hear is that the Somali's can't control their own territorial waters, and thus the chaos. But doesn't Yemen have some responsibility here?

Also, how come we're waiting for India to take these guys down? Shouldn't there be an international force hunting down these supposed pirate "motherships" and blowing them out of the water by now? Seems like one carrier with a dozen new pilots ready for their first live-fire exercises would do the trick.