Somalia is a broken country, awash with hunger, poverty and guns. Piracy is one of the few things that work. So while yesterday’s dramatic rescue is a victory for the world’s navies, it is likely to prove only a small setback for the thugs who rule the waves in their fast-moving skiffs.

Life is cheap in a war-ravaged country, devastated by two decades of civil war, where warlords and Islamist militias hold sway. The fastest way to a job is to own an AK47, the only qualification needed to join one of the armed gangs that run protection rackets and man roadblocks.

Putting to sea offers a much better wage than the $10 or so a day a militiaman might earn.

More than $3 million each has been paid out for two of the pirate’s biggest prizes in recent months, making the rewards far outweigh the risks.

The gun-toting entrepreneurs have developed one of Africa’s best-performing business models.

Visitors to pirate haunts along the lawless Somali coast have met car dealers who sell as many as 50 top-of-the-range 4x4s every time a big ship comes in, and young boys who dream of following their fathers to become pirates.

They donate cash to the rest of the community and are treated as heroes. Last year the rewards got even better. Whereas in the past cash was paid to moneymen in Dubai or Kenya, shipowners began paying money directly to the pirates, using airdrops or traditional sailing dhows to deliver wads of dollars.

The pirates may have suffered casualties during this past week — three yesterday, and two killed by French commandos on Friday — but they are still holding 17 vessels.

Analysts believe the only way to stop Somalis taking to the sea is to bring stability to the land.

“Tackling the pirates at sea is really like swatting mosquitoes without draining the swamp,” is how a naval officer put it. In recent weeks the pirates have also developed tactics to thwart an international coalition of navies patrolling the Gulf of Aden. They have launched attacks much farther south to evade warships.

Analysts believe they have also become more violent, travelling in larger numbers and firing warning shots as they board. That trend could be escalated by the most recent casualties.

“The pirates will know from now that anything can happen. The French are doing this, the Americans are doing it. Things will be more violent from now on,” said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers Assistance Programme.

“This is a big wake-up to the pirates. It raises the stakes.”

There are also growing fears for the 260 hostages currently held by pirates. In the past they have generally been well treated as negotiations dragged on for weeks. Last night there was a chilling warning that that could change.

“The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now,” Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite phone.

It has been a bloody weekend for the pirates but Somalia’s recent history suggests that the risk of death has rarely been enough to stop men taking up guns.

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