Up until recently the Somali pirates were fairly civil, they'd bring home cooked meals out to the ships they captured. This is not a good sign.

Honestly, I don't really blame them for taking to piracy. The area was once a decent fishery, but without a strong government to enforce territorial claims dredge fishing operations from Asia ( from what I understand, Thailand was a big operator there ) came through and literaly swept the place clean. Joining a Somali warband, starving, or turning to piracy seemed to be the local options.