As if being hijacked weren’t bad enough, anyone finding themselves the guests of Somali pirates now has to deal with interest from an even more dangerous quarter.

The Islamists who hold sway across much of Somalia do not have a comforting reputation. One of the main insurgent groups fighting the Government in Mogadishu is al-Shabaab, a group with self-professed links to al-Qaeda and global jihad. Its fight against African Union forces and the Western-backed Government has attracted fighters from Britain, the US and Pakistan.

The other main group is only a little less malevolent. Hizb al-Islam is led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a terrorist wanted by the US. The group’s ideology is more nationalistic, with jihad seen as a means to unite all Somali people under one flag, but it is scarcely less extreme.

Often allied against the Government, the two groups turned their guns on each other this year over who should hold a pair of French intelligence agents who had been kidnapped in Mogadishu.

In the past, hostages could wait for months while employers or governments negotiated over ransoms, with pirates regarding them as assets and treating them relatively well. But whichever group of militants is headed for the Chandlers, it is far less likely to be interested in looking after them.

And the ordeal doesn’t necessarily end with the delivery of a ransom. Last year, when sacks of dollar bills were parachuted in to pirates in exchange for a ship and her crew, gun battles erupted between rival groups determined to muscle in on the spoils.

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