The Piracy-Terror Nexus Revisited

I’m not sure that I’d draw any conclusions from what’s actually a pretty small sample, but Galrahn nevertheless touches on a question that nags at the edge of the piracy debate: If terrorists organization haven’t yet taken advantage of the opportunities that maritime piracy seems to offer, why not?

I can think of a few potential answers:

1. They have; terrorist organization may be “taxing” Somali pirates, and perhaps in some ways enabling their operations through intelligence assistance, weapons, etc.
2. They have; don’t you remember the Achille Lauro? This leads us back to the original question, however; why haven’t further Achille Lauro style attacks been launched? Also, I was unaware that the Achille Lauro had caught fire and sank off the coast of Somalia back in 1994…
3. Piracy requires a set of maritime skills that aren’t well distributed among the populations that terrorists tend to recruit from. This is not to say that terrorists couldn’t recruit from such populations, just that they haven’t yet.
4. Capturing or blowing up a freighter full of machine parts destined for Guangzhou isn’t really worth a terrorist’s time.

Any other thoughts?