LONDON - Somalia's prime minister said Wednesday his government would do its utmost to rescue a hijacked British couple but warned that piracy was a "desperate survival measure" for his people.
"It is rarely seen for what it really is -- a desperate survival measure and in many coastal communities the only job available and the only viable means of income," Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke said in a speech in London.
He said piracy, which dominated central and northeastern Somalia, should not be seen as just a criminal activity.
"I do not condone it, I want it to stop, but I reflect on how humanely they treat the crews caught in the middle, and that 30 percent of each ransom is used to support the local community," he said.
Sharmarke said the pirates were responding to "the loss and disappearance of their livelihoods", adding: "Many of these pirates were once profitable fishermen and would be so again given the chance."
He said in the speech to the London-based think-tank that he had spoken to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband "and I want to give my assurance to the family that my government will do everything it can, within its resources, to find this couple and return them safely."
He told Sky News television afterwards: "As soon as we locate them, we will seek to exert our influence over local communities and see a peaceful, successful resolution to this."
In his speech, Sharmarke said piracy dominated central and northeastern Somalia but said his transitional administration had a plan to "eradicate Somali piracy" by 2011 through civilian and military efforts.
Paul Chandler, 58, and his wife Rachel, 55, were sailing from the Seychelles to Tanzania but there has been no trace of them since their yacht sent a distress signal at 2200 GMT Friday.
Meanwhile Sharmarke also warned that Al-Qaeda is using Somalia to train, regroup and plan further attacks.
"Somalia has now clearly become a haven for the pariah that is Al-Qaeda," Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke said in a speech in London.
"We cannot be certain of the precise size of their presence in our country but Al-Qaeda are here, they are training and planning in our land. Somalia is serving as an ideal place for them to re-group and redeploy."
The Shebab group and allied grous control large swathes of southern and central Somalia, and Sharmarke said defeating them was important not only to his country but "to the whole world".
He said the insurgency was also spreading to other countries and "Al Shabab is now starting to threaten regional stability".
"And Somalia does risk being taken over by Al-Qaeda, just as Afghanistan was the haven of Al-Qaeda in the 1990s," he told the Royal Institute of International Affairs think-tank at Chatham House in London.
Sharmarke said that an exclusively military response would not work, saying strong government and regeneration was needed to provide an alternative.
"An insurgency needs chaos, discontent and poverty and we must take that away," he said.
Sharmarke is part of a transitional government headed by cleric President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed that took over earlier this year, but has faced a renewed campaign by the Shebab.
Piracy began in the region after Western ships started dumping toxic waste off the coast of Somalia, devastating the Somali fishing industry.
Pirate activity was almost totally curbed under the rule of Islamic Courts Union (ICU), who had controlled a large swathe of Somalia for several months with relative peace and prosperity before being ousted late 2006.
Somali fishermen said they are worried about the increased presence of foreign navy warships off the coast.
The Ethiopian army invaded Somalia in late 2006 to rescue Somalia's embattled transitional government and oust the ICU.
The ICU had ruled much of Somalia with relative peace and prosperity until the Ethiopian involvement.
Since then, ICU fighters have waged a deadly insurgency against the Ethiopian and the transitional government forces.
But Ethiopian troops’ retaliations have caused many casualties among Somali civilians.
Since the Ethiopian invasion, about one million Somalis have fled their homes. An estimated 6,500 civilians have been killed.
Aid workers estimate 2.6 million Somalis need assistance. That number is expected to reach 3.5 million by the end of the year if the humanitarian situation does not improve, according to the UN.
In May 2008, Amnesty International accused the Ethiopian troops in Somalia of increasingly resorting to throat-slitting executions, highlighting an "increasing incidence" of gruesome methods by Ethiopian forces that include rape and torture.
Since the ousting of the ICU, Somalia had plunged into unprecedented chaos, where warlords and pirates have returned to the scene.
Many in Somalia see the departure of Ethiopian troops as a precondition to peace negotiations.
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