MOGADISHU For local youth in the Somali coastal town of Harardhere, where the ransom for a Greek supertanker freed on Monday brought a windfall of nine million dollars, the lure of piracy has never been so strong.

On December 10, the European Union Naval Force combating sea bandits from Somalia gathered its commanders to cut a cake celebrating the mission's first anniversary and trumpet a “year of success”.

Meanwhile, the pirates were cutting their own cake in the Indian Ocean, defying warships with their nimble skiffs to hijack more vessels and rake in record ransoms.

“Lots of militiamen are joining our piratehood every day and this is one of the reasons for the increased number of attacks,” Abdi Yare said from Somalia's “piracy capital” of Harardhere.

Days after he spoke to AFP, his fellow pirates released the VLCC Maran Centaurus - a supertanker the size of three football pitches carrying two million barrels of crude oil — in exchange for an estimated nine million dollars.

Somali pirates still hold at least 11 other vessels — with trophies ranging from a British chemical tanker to a ship carrying 2,300 Korean cars — and more around 270 seamen.

“I would say right now there are around 100 of our pirates out at sea hunting ships on a given day,” Abdi Yare said.

“This is a very high number considering the weather and, for sure, the number will increase once the wind dies,” he added.

Somalia's pirates have at times squabbled but are, by and large, less fractious than other groups in the country's clan society and remain one of Somalia's best-organised paramilitary outfits.

Ransoms for the most valuable ships they seize can often fetch three million dollars and more. Even the small share a rank-and-file pirate is left with after the bounty is divided constitutes a powerful magnet for Somali youth.

With no effective central authority since 1991 to provide security and a state of perpetual civil conflict making regular business almost impossible, a career in buccaneering is seen by many jobless young men as a rare opportunity.

“Young unemployed men hear about the huge amounts of money the pirates can make with ransoms and that's all the encouragement they need,” said Mohamed Abdule, an elder in Haradhere.

Village becoming a modern-day Klondike

In 2007, the pirates had it easy. Armed with Kalashnikovs and grapnels, all they had to do was stray a few miles off the coast of Puntland to pick one of the 20,000 vessels that bottleneck into the Gulf of Aden each year.

The threat to one of the world's busiest and most crucial maritime routes spurred naval powers into scrambling warships to the region and the pirates now face a multi-billion-dollar armada of more than 15 nations.

But as navies perfected their act, so did the pirates, who ventured hundreds of miles into the Indian Ocean, where naval forces are stretched too thin to create an effective net.

“Nobody is really hunting us, our teams go and seize ships under the noses of the foreign forces,” boasted Hasan Ganey, another Harardhere-based pirate.

“When we see the navy, we simply change tack and they don't follow us.”

One pirate freshman said business was brisk and explained he also enjoyed a spirit of camaraderie he did not find elsewhere.

“There is a great business out here. You go with friends, you seize a ship without firing a single shot and weeks later you come back with big money,” said the 23-year-old, who gave his name only as Gure.

“We prefer to do this piracy thing until change comes to this country,” he told AFP by phone from Harardhere.

The commander of marine forces in Somalia's embattled transitional federal government admitted that pirate numbers were soaring.

“I can see a 50 per cent increase in the rate at which young men are enlisting with the pirates over the past few months,” Farah Qare said.

“I hope newly-established home grown marine forces can offer a solution to the problem in 2010, that way we will no longer be waiting for foreign forces to protect our waters,” Qare added.

Many are occasional pirates who sign up for a one-off expedition and return to civilian life when the first ransom is paid, making it difficult to accurately estimate the number of pirates in Somalia.

In the Hobyo-Harardhere region, currently the busiest piracy hub in Somalia by far, the pirates were believed to number around 500 in mid-2009, a figure pirates themselves and officials alike say is likely to have risen since.

Elders in Harardhere said that what was once a tiny and sleepy fishing village is becoming a modern-day Klondike bursting at the seams with a pirate class of nouveaux riches and new arrivals hoping to be like them.

“Most of them are new to ocean sailing, there are lots of them right who can't go out because of the waves but as soon as the weather eases, hundreds of them will flock out,” Mohamoud Adan Tuke said.

“I predict 2010 will be the worst yet for people sailing the Indian Ocean.”—AFP