British Hostage Brought to Central Somalia

Judith Tebbutt, the British woman who was kidnapped from a Kenyan resort after her husband’s murder, is believed to be in central Somalia, according to The New York Times. The daring cross-border raid that kidnapped her appears to be the work of Somali pirates, not Islamist terrorists as was first feared. Pirates were recently seen with a female hostage “in a notorious pirate den hundreds of miles inside Somalia,” according to the Times, which did not publish the name of the town at the request of the British government. Still, the nature of the pirates’ raid suggests they must have cooperated with the Islamist group Al-Shabab, which controls land where the pirates would have to refuel.