Militias loyal to ISIS could bring Somalia-style piracy to the Mediterranean, officials fear.

Two centuries after the brutal Berber pirates were cowered into submission, the threat of maritime terror in the Med is once again looming from North Africa.

Fighters that have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State have made sweeping new inroads in Libya, and have taken numerous coastal towns, just a few hundred miles across the water from mainland Europe.

Italian officials believe that militants are already working with experienced seamen – the human traffickers shipping tens of thousands of migrants to Europe every month.

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Terror threat: Officials are worried Islamic State could bring Somali-style piracy to the Mediterranean after threatening to hide militants among the 500,000 refugees it threatened to send to Europe - if they are attacked in Libya

'Psychological attack': If ISIS make good on their threat of sending half a million migrants all at once to Europe, emergency services such as the Italian Coast Guards (pictured off the coast of Sicily) may not be able to cope

Mass emigration: More than 5,000 migrants - including those fleeing the Libya crisis - have arrived in Italy since the start of January alone which is a 59 per cent increase on the same time last year

Death at sea: More than 300 African migrants are believed to have died at sea this week alone, some of which are trying to escape the spread of militancy in Libya

And it is feared they could be close to striking into a bold new business on one of the world's busiest waterways.

Rampant piracy has characterised shipping in the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen since the civil war in the 1990s plunged the country into lawlessness and clan warfare.

The international community struggled to get to grips with the armed attacks because of the impossibility for Western forces to patrol 2.5 million square miles of ocean with just a few dozen ships.

British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler were captured on their yacht by Somali pirates off the Seychelles in 2009 and held hostage for 388 days before they were ransomed.

Last weekend jihadists in Libya took control of their second urban centre in Sirte, Gaddafi's coastal birthplace and announced they would march on Misrata, Libya's third biggest city.

And footage released by the terrorists of the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach on Sunday showed they were already at the shores of the Mediterranean, just 220 miles south of Italy.

In the video the lead executioner pointed his knife northwards across the waters of the Mediterranean and vowed to 'conquer Rome'.

Extremist propaganda: It emerged yesterday that ISIS threatened to flood Europe with 500,000 migrants from Libya in a 'psychological' attack against the West

Influx of migrants: More than 170,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat last year and almost 4,000 have been rescued of its coast in the last six days alone

Refugees: Migrants from sub-Saharan Africam Eritrea and those fleeing the violence in Libya yesterday arrived at the military airport in Bresso, Italy

Makeshift homes: Some of the people who have left Africa for Europe will be housed in temporary tents and structures set up by the Red Cross in Bresso

Escaping terror: Islamic State has taken control of massive parts of Libya, forcing many to flee to European countries such as Italy (pictured)

And Italian intelligence suggests that they already have the necessary access and know how to wreak havoc in European waters.

Analysts at the Ministry of defence are 'preparing for every eventuality', a spokesman said.

The fears were backed up by analysis by a leading defence magazine, Rivista Italiana Difesa. A report said: 'Having gained control of some ports and of vessels of various descriptions and with the possibility of taking advantage of the experience accumulated by the people traffickers working the migratory routes for years, ISIS could repeat the scenario that has dominated the maritime region between Somalia and Aden for the last ten years'.

The document went on: 'Speed boats could attack fishing boats, cruise ships, small merchant ships, as well as coast guard in this case more to capture prisoners to exhibit in orange jumpsuits and a knife to the neck (and to ask for lucrative ransoms for them).

'Boats crammed with migrants could also be used in "kamikaze" missions,' the experts said, in which ships carrying explosives would be detonated taking with them coast guard boats or other rescue craft.

It emerged yesterday that ISIS threatened to flood Europe with 500,000 migrants from Libya in a 'psychological' attack against the West.

Breaking point: The officials at Lampedusa airport (pictured) are struggling to process the 1,200 newly arrived migrants in a reception centre built for a third of that number - and now Islamic State has threatened to send 500,000 to Europe's shores

Escape: Today, the spread of violence and extremism in Libya has forced thousands to flee to Italy (ferry port of Lampedusa pictured) where officials are struggling to deal with the sudden influx

Dangerous: Egypt's brutal airstrikes on the Libyan village of Derna - in retaliation for the mass murder of 21 of its countrymen - forced many to abandon their homes

Searching for safety: With militancy and violence spreading through Libya, many Egyptians living there are now returning to their home country (pictured on the border village Sallum)

More than 170,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat last year and almost 4,000 have been rescued of its coast in the last six days alone.

Mediterranean piracy would bring an end to leisure sailing and would strike a blow at the heart of the cruise industry.

It could also drive up the cost of living for Europeans as cargo would increasingly have to travel by rail and road.

The sea is among the world's busiest waterways and accounts for 15 per cent of global shipping activity, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

And only a small expanse of Egyptian land separates it and the Suez Canal - the artificial waterway connecting Northern African with countries like Somalia and Ethiopia in the east.

Over 17,000 ships - weighing almost one million tonnes - passed through the 101 mile channel in 2014 alone.



In 2009, Libya signed a deal with Italy to stop the flow of illegal immigrants from northern-Africa to its shores. And in return, Italy pledged to pay $5billion over 25 years to the country it colonised for 33 years.

On the second anniversary of the treaty, Gaddafi warned that Europe 'might turn black because of all the illegal immigrants'.

Retaliation: Egypt blitzed ISIS training camps, weapons stockpiles and fighters in two waves of air strikes following the gruesome murder of captured Egyptian workers in a video (above) released on Sunday

Procession: A fleet of cars parade freely through the Libyan city of Benghazi, showing the level of control they exercise in the country ruled almost entirely by rebel forces

Prophecy: In 2009, Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi signed a deal with Italy to stop the flow of illegal immigrants from northern-Africa to its shores and warned the waters might 'turn black because of illegal immigrants'

If the militants do exploit the new and potentially profitable business opportunity of piracy it could bring in millions to fund new terror.

Middle East and Africa risk consultancy Perim Associatesbelieves the threat of that happening and extremist infiltration of illegal African emigrants to Europe is 'certainly conceivable'.

Its Chief Executive Ethan Chorin said: 'ISIS has been drawing attention by doing very extreme things.

'Ironically, it backs up what Gaddafi promised would happen if the regime fell - there would be pirates in Crete, and on the Italian shore.

ISIS has been drawing attention by doing very extreme things... Ironically, it backs up what Gaddafi promised would happen if the regime fell - there would be pirates in Crete, and on the Italian shore. Libya would become another Somalia. Ethan Chorin, Middle East and Africa Expert

'Libya would become another Somalia. In fact, the only way this would happen is if a series of major blunders was committed, and Libya became a failed state as a result.'

'Groups like AQIM - whose current connections with ISIS are unclear - have allegedly collected over $50million in ransom from the European states for their captured nationals.'

There has also been speculation that Islamic State has been raising money with lucrative drug trading from Latin America and recently.

And this week, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations accused the group of harvesting organs to raise funds.

Mohamed Alhakim urged the UN Security Council to investigate suspected organ harvesting after masses of corpses with surgical incisions and missing kidneys were discovered in shallow graves in Mosul, Northern Iraq.

The new analysis comes days after an Italian coast guard boat carrying out a rescue off the coast of Libya was threatened by four men carrying Kalashnikovs. The gunmen refused to give up their dinghy and fled after handing over the migrants on board.

The industrial scale piracy off the coast of Somalia is the result of long-term instability onshore.

Somalia has been described as the archetype of a failed state, without a functioning central government since the early 1990s and split by an insurgency.

Terror on the water: Somali pirates (pictured attacking the Zhenua 4 in the Gulf of Aden would track the passage of often poorly defended cargo vessels in the major shipping lanes

At the height of attacks by Somali pirates (pictured being apprehended by Royal Marines) up to a dozen or more merchant ships were being held captive at any one time

Only the capital Mogadishu is under the control of the Transitional Government – which has the military backing of neighbouring Ethiopia – and even within the city limits its grip on power is weak.

Piracy in the Gulf of Aden came to the forefront in 2008 – with the hijacking of the Sirius Star, the largest ship ever to fall to such an assault.

Armed pirates track the passage of often poorly defended cargo vessels in the major shipping lanes.

They give chase in high speed skiffs and hold them hostage until a ransom is paid.

Attacks more than doubled in frequency in that year, as pirates used new tactics and weaponry threatening the future of the Suez Canal as a major shipping route.

At the height of Somali pirate attacks in 2011, up to a dozen or more merchant ships were being held captive at any one time, often for multi-million dollar ransoms.

Since then, growing use of private security details and the presence of international warships have largely prevented successful attacks in that area, while boardings have surged in West Africa and off the coasts of Indonesia and Malaysia.

Piracy in the Mediterranean ended in the nineteenth century after the Berber pirates were bombarded in Algiers. International treaties later banned profiteering or legalised government-sanctioned piracy, which was practised by Sir Francis Drake.