It seems some Somali pirates have hijacked an Iranian owned and operated cargo ship. The ship, the MV Iran Deyanat, is a 44468 ton bulk carrier, and the pirates intentions are to hold it for 2 million dollars in ransom. This seems to be a very common occurrence in these waters and prompt payment of ransoms has made it VERY profitable. But in this instance the pirates seem to have gotten more than they wanted. The pirates have been getting sick, blistered and burnt skin, hair falling out and several have seemed to die mysteriously.

Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died.

These symptoms are classic signs of radiation poisoning and given that several seemed to have diedI would suspect moderate to severe exposure.

It seems that it’s quite routine for Iran to use ships like this with vague manifests listing items that are not necessarily what is in the holds.

The MV Iran Deyanat is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) – a state-owned company run by the Iranian military that was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on September 10, shortly after the ship’s hijacking. According to the U.S. Government, the company regularly falsifies shipping documents in order to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments to avoid the attention of shipping authorities, and employs the use of cover entities to circumvent United Nations sanctions to facilitate weapons proliferation for the Iranian Ministry of Defense.

I would hope that our government is working on a plan to access, investigate and possibly take custody of the MV Iran Deyanat and expose to the world visual evidence of Irans nuclear weapons ambitions.