Watch part two 

On Sunday, November 16, 2008, pirates seized a Saudi Arabian supertanker with 100 million dollars worth of oil on board, which had been sailing with no one and nothing to protect it through the treacherous Gulf of Aden.

Dozens of ships have been taken hostage. Not too long ago, in September, a Ukrainian ship carrying Russian tanks was seized off the Somali coast. That ship is still in the hands of the pirates.

With Somalia's interim government in exile divided, and the fragmented Islamic opposition battling each other, what is the future of Somalia as the world watches civilians starve and super tankers hijacked? Could the threat of piracy be the impetus for finding a solution to the complicated Somali affair?

Presenter Sami Zeidan is joined for today's Inside Story by Graeme Gibbon Brooks, the managing director of Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service, plus Mohamud Gure, the chairman of Somali Concern Group, and Awad Ashareh a prominent Somali parliamentary figure.

This episode of Inside Story aired on Tuesday, November 18, 2008.