Maritime Piracy

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Piracy warning for Somali coast boosted after new incidents

NAIROBI, June 8 (AFP) - The International Maritime Board (IMB) has boosted its piracy warning for the coast of lawless Somalia after two recent violent attacks, including one this week in which a US naval destroyer intervened.

The board, a division of the International Chamber of Commerce, said the new attacks, the fourth and fifth off the Somali coast in three months, underscored the danger to mariners in the area and renewed a warning for transiting vessels to avoid the region.

"The eastern and northeastern coasts of Somalia continue to be high-risk areas for hijackings," it said in its weekly piracy report issued Tuesday.

"Ships not making scheduled calls to ports in these areas should stay away from the coast," it said, noting that all five incidents since March 31 had involved armed pirates who, in at least two cases, took crews hostage.

Both the IMB and the United States, which issues its own maritime threat assessments, warned of a surge in piracy in Somali waters in April after the first three attacks.

They have repeated those alerts regularly but not until this week had either mentioned new attacks.

The last reported attack took place on Monday in waters off the Somalia capital of Mogadishu in which three gunmen in a white speedboat opened fire on an unidentified bulk carrier with automatic weapons, the IMB said.

The USS Gonzalez, a US naval ship in the area, responded to the vessel's distress call, came close, fired flares and escorted the carrier further out to sea, it said.

There were "no injuries to crew but gunfire by pirates caused 10 bullet holes on the starboard side near the bridge," the IMB said in its brief description of the incident.

The second most recent and possibly more serious attack took place off Somalia's eastern coast on May 22 when pirates boarded and hijacked a cargo ship, beating up 21 crewmembers, locking them in a room and demanding a ransom for their release, it said.

"Further news is awaited" on that incident, the IMB said.

An earlier hostage crisis involving a ship hijacked in April was resolved last month, reportedly as a US naval ship observed.

In March, the United States advised western shipping firms of possible speedboat-launched terrorist attacks on vessels in the Indian Ocean off the coast of east Africa, including Somali waters.

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Ships warned to steer well clear of Somali coast in new piracy alert

NAIROBI, June 14 (AFP) - The International Maritime Board (IMB) on Tuesday warned ships transiting Indian Ocean sea lanes off the coast of lawless Somalia to stay as far away as possible from shore due to a surge in piracy there.

In the latest in a series of increasingly dire alerts about threats to commercial shipping in waters off east and northeast Somali, the board said vessels not making calls in the region should stay at least 50 miles (85 kilometers) and preferably further away from the coast.

"Eastern and northeastern coasts of Somalia continue to be high-risk areas for hijackings," the Malaysia-based IMB said in its weekly piracy report issued Tuesday.

"Ships not making scheduled calls to ports in these areas should stay at least 50 miles or as far away as practical from the eastern coast of Somalia," it said, recommending for the first time a distance for captains to use.

The board, a division of the International Chamber of Commerce, said recent attacks, including one earlier this month in which a US naval destroyer intervened to save besieged vessel, underscored the danger to mariners there.

Earlier this year, both the IMB and the United States, which issues its own maritime threat assessments, warned of a surge in piracy in Somali waters after three attacks were reported after a quiet spell between March 31 and mid-April.

Those warnings have been renewed regularly but last week, after two new violent attacks -- one in late May and one in earlier June, the IMB boosted its alert.

All five incidents reported since March 31 have involved armed pirates who, in at least two cases, took crews hostage.

The last reported attack took place on June 7 off the Somalia capital of Mogadishu when three gunmen in a white speedboat opened fire with automatic weapons on an unidentified bulk carrier, according to the IMB.

The USS Gonzalez, a US naval ship in the area, responded to the vessel's distress call, came close, fired flares and escorted the carrier further out to sea, it said.

There were "no injuries to crew but gunfire by pirates caused 10 bullet holes on the starboard side near the bridge," the IMB said in a brief description of the incident.

In March, the United States advised western shipping firms of possible speedboat-launched terrorist attacks on vessels in the Indian Ocean off the coast of east Africa, including Somali waters.

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Malaysian police say dramatic pirate attack an inside job, two arrested

KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 (AFP) - Malaysian police announced Thursday they have arrested two crewmen from a tanker which was hijacked by Indonesian pirates this week, saying they believed it was an inside job.

Ten pirates boarded the tanker loaded with diesel off Malaysia's Langkawi island on Tuesday but their planned attack was foiled when a quick-thinking sailor raced off in their speedboat, stranding them on the vessel.

He returned with five police patrol boats and after a tense standoff, the pirates aboard the Malaysian tanker were persuaded to surrender.

Kedah state police chief Mohamed Supian Amat told The Star newspaper that an Indonesian crew member and another unidentified officer were believed to have alerted the pirates to the ship, which was travelling from Singapore to Myanmar.

"We believe this is an inside job. This hijacking was well planned," he told the English-language daily.

Deputy police chief Musa Hassan said international syndicates could be involved in the hijacking of the tanker in the Malacca Strait.

Their involvement was suspected because they have to find a source to dispose of the diesel, he was quoted as saying by the Bernama news agency in Langkawi island where the pirates are being detained.

Musa also said divers have been deployed to search for weapons believed to have been thrown overboard when police raided the ship.

"There is a possibility that the pirates planned to hijack the ship for the cargo, taking into account high oil prices," said Noel Choong, head of the Piracy Reporting Centre of the London-based International Maritime Bureau.

Police must investigate who the attackers are, if they belong to the same group involved in kidnapping crews for ransom, when they started the scheme, and which syndicates if any are involved in the attack, he said.

Choong said a new syndicate may have emerged with a plan to hijack fuel cargos, noting that in the late 1990s there were many similar cases where pirates hijacked a ship to transfer the cargo to another tanker.

The Malacca Strait is one of the world's most important waterways, with 50,000 ships carrying about one-third of the globe's trade passing through it each year.

However the strait, 960 kilometres (600 miles) long and 1.2 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, is notoriously vulnerable to pirate attacks. Governments in the region also believe it is tempting for terrorists.

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Pirates raid supertanker at Iraq's Basra
By Stefano Ambrogi

LONDON, June 16 (Reuters) - Armed pirates raided a supertanker anchored close to Iraq's Basra oil export terminal in the early hours of Wednesday, in the latest serious security breach at the facility.

Local ship agent Gulf Agency Company (GAC) said the raid comes only two weeks after pirates attacked the crew of a supertanker waiting to load crude oil at the southern deep water terminal where most of Iraq's crude oil is exported.

Exports from Basra provide nearly all of Iraq's income.

"The alert was sounded when watchmen found three men carrying long knives, a rifle and a machine gun on board the vessel. The pirates fled in a speed boat and no causalties have been reported," GAC said.

The agent said merchant ships should be extremely cautious in and around the deepwater terminals and anchorages. "In light of this latest incident, robust anti-piracy procedures should be adopted," it said.

Security worries have plagued Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in the spring of 2003.

Only this week U.S.-led coalition naval forces increased patrols in and around Iraq's Basra oil terminals after two high-profile security scares.

The U.S.'s Navy's Fifth Fleet, which helps co-ordinate maritime security in the Gulf, said security measures employed by the crew had foiled the attempted raid.

"This was a good example of a ship having sound internal security measures that thwarted an attempt...they had alert watches and that is what we encourage all mariners to do," the U.S. Navy's Lieutenant Commander Charlie Brown told Reuters from Bahrain.

But a maritime secuirty analyst, whose firm provides security in Iraq, said the incident was a serious breach.

"The moment they get aboard the vessel you've lost," the analyst who did not want to be identified told Reuters.

He said that if terrorists had got on board the outcome would have been far graver.

"Because they are gaining control and there intent is absolute: to destroy the vessel, do destroy a target."

Brown said there was nothing to indicate that the assailants were anything more than bandits. He said coalition forces took security very seriously and that their presence had increased overtly.

Last week, the navy told Reuters coalition forces were only directly responsible for security at the oil terminals and not at the approaches or anchorages.

SECURITY CONCERNS

Piracy watchdog, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), said the incident once again raised serious questions over security.

"It's pretty worrying because of everything that is happening in Iraq. We are monitoring the situation closely," Jayant Abhyankar, deputy director of the IMB, told Reuters.

On May 31, pirates armed with AK-47 assault rifles stormed the Nord Millennium with a capacity of 300,000 tonnes anchored near Basra terminal.

They assaulted the crew before making off with thousands of dollars in cash.

In late April, security was tightened after an armed gang raided a wheat-carrying ship anchored in the vicinity.

Security was stepped up last year at Basra oil terminal after al Qaeda's al-Zarqawi group carried out suicide boat attacks at the terminal.

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Malaysian police arrest alleged mastermind of oil tanker hijack: report

KUALA LUMPUR, June 22 (AFP) - Malaysian police have arrested a man accused of being the mastermind behind the botched hijacking of an oil tanker in the piracy-prone Malacca Strait last week, reports said Wednesday.

The 42-year-old was arrested late Monday in the capital Kuala Lumpur, the official Bernama news agency said, without specifying his nationality.

Police said he was suspected of planning to sell the tanker's load of diesel to a buyer in a neighbouring country.

Ten Indonesian pirates boarded the Malaysian tanker off Langkawi island on June 14 but their planned attack was foiled when a quick-thinking sailor raced off in their speedboat, stranding them on the vessel.

He returned with five police patrol boats and after a tense standoff, the pirates were persuaded to surrender.

The Malacca Strait is one of the world's most important waterways, with 50,000 ships carrying about one-third of the globe's trade passing through it each year.

However the strait, 960 kilometres (600 miles) long and 1.2 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, is notoriously vulnerable to pirate attacks.

Governments in the region also believe it is tempting for terrorists.

[Nick in Atlanta]

Is the whole Strait of Malacca between peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra (Indonesia) international waters? I believe that 3 miles from a country's coastline is considered that country's territory, but when the distance between two countries is only 1.2 kilometers, how would one determine if and how much is international waters?

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Indonesian pirates plead guilty to attack on Malaysian tanker

KUALA LUMPUR, June 28 (AFP) - Ten Indonesians on Tuesday admitted a pirate attack on a Malaysian-owned tanker when they appeared in court in Malaysia, Bernama news agency said.

It said the 10, mainly from the tsunami-hit province of Aceh and who were not represented by lawyers, admitted that they carried out the attack armed with machetes.

They are Lukman Daim, 34; Johan Arifin, 43; Ruatam Pangabean, 57; Ismail Ataleb, 24; Irfan Muluna Adam, 24; Junaidi Abdul Rahman, 28; Hashim Adam, 25; Mukalis M. Ali Omar, 28, Wisnu Probowo, 33 and Afizal Razali, 26.

They face up to 20 years in jail and caning when sentenced on July 10.

The tanker, which was carrying diesel from Malaysia's Port Klang to Myanmar, was boarded before dawn off the northern island of Langkawi in the Malacca Strait earlier this month.

The attack was foiled when a quick-thinking crewman from the tanker leapt into the robbers' boat and sped off in it to fetch the police.

The Malacca Strait is one of the world's most important waterways, with 50,000 ships carrying about one-third of world trade passing through it each year.

However the strait, 960 kilometres (600 miles) long and 1.2 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, is notoriously vulnerable to pirate attacks and governments in the region also believe it is tempting for terrorists.

In an effort to stem attacks, the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have launched co-ordinated patrols.

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Shipping industry's response to piracy is all at sea
MALACCA STRAIT: Tim Johnston explains why the risk is seen by some shipowners to be worth taking, although insurance premiums may increase to reflect the dangers.
27 June 2005
Financial Times

The manner in which business copes with transporting goods through the piracy-ridden Malacca Strait, the narrow sea lane between Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, highlights the way executives assess the balance of risk.

Last year more than 63,500 ships passed through, and traffic is growing at more than 5 per cent a year. At its narrowest it is only 20 nautical miles across, making it easy to spot and chase down slow-moving cargo ships.

There is a universally recognised problem with piracy in the strait. According to the Piracy Reporting Centre, part of the International Maritime Bureau, there were 37 attacks on ships in the strait last year, making it one of the most dangerous stretches of water on earth. Thirty crew are known to have been killed and 30 others are missing.

Other attacks may have gone unreported by shipowners fearful of increasing insurance premiums.

Iskandar Sazlan of the Maritime Institute of Malaysia says the absolute number of attacks is low relative to overall traffic. "Our concern is the magnitude of the incidents is getting more serious," he says. As an example he says that in April, pirates boarded a Japanese tanker armed with rocket propelled grenades, the first time such heavy weapons had been used in an attack on shipping in the strait.

Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have co-ordinated patrols to reduce the attacks but efforts have been hampered by Indonesia, the weakest link in the chain.

Indonesia is grappling with huge domestic problems and pirate attacks on 0.008 per cent of ships passing through its waters are not high on the list of priorities. The navy is under-funded and has few ships to cover a huge shoreline with many small creeks and mangrove swamps ideally suited to hiding the small, powerful boats typically used by pirates.

Many of the bandits are believed to be based in Indonesia's restive northern province of Aceh. This belief was given extra weight by last December's earthquake and tsunami which killed 165,000 people in Aceh and destroyed much of the infrastructure, including many boats, and led to a two month cessation of pirate attacks.

The attacks resumed as soon as the numerous foreign naval ships, which had gathered to provide assistance, left the area.

There are persistent rumours that members of the Indonesian security forces are involved in some of the attacks. At least one analyst points out that there is an unusually heavy police and army presence in Aceh because of the insurgency: the analyst, who did not want to be named, believes pirates could not operate without the tacit approval, if not active involvement, of some of the security forces.

But the attacks have had relatively little effect on the flow of shipping. Security companies that offered to provide armed guards ships have had little interest.

That is partly because most attacks have been on small coastal trading ships, with the pirates emptying the ship's safe, perhaps ransoming some of the crew.

The larger ships have generally been left alone after safes have been emptied. Since the funds they carry - enough to cover port fees and some crew salaries - are not greater than the cost of employing armed security, most shipowners prefer to take the risk.

More controversial are fears of terrorism. Some security analysts say Islamic militants could turn a ship into a floating bomb, or make the strait impassable to shipping.

The US has offered assistance in patrolling the strait, but Indonesia and Malaysia, sensitive to questions of national sovereignty, have ruled out foreign assistance.

Experts say it would be extremely difficult to turn a ship, even one carrying a volatile cargo such as liquefied natural gas, into a bomb. "It takes time, which they won't have and a ship has a lot of safety systems that are designed to prevent this," says Gordon Milne of the ship classification society Lloyd's Register.

Mr Sazlan of the Maritime Institute of Malaysia thinks it is unlikely that either pirates or terrorists could stop traffic in the Malacca Strait. "This is not the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal, it's a big area so ships can divert from problem areas."

Probably the most dispassionate assessors of the risks posed by pirates or terrorists in the Malacca Strait are those who would have to pay out in the event of a disaster: the underwriters who insure the ships.

Neil Smith, marine manager at the Lloyd's Market Association, which represents underwriters at Lloyd's of London, says that they have not increased premiums for ships travelling through the strait but recognise that complacency is not an option.

"We are looking at options that would allow underwriters to be more clinical about the Malacca Strait because, although there have not been any major losses as yet, we would be silly to think we can go on for ever without something arising which would be a major incident," he says.

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World Food Program Suspends Somalia Aid Shipments
5 July 2005

UNITED NATIONS (AP)--The World Food Program suspended relief shipments to Somalia after pirates seized a ship carrying aid for tsunami victims, a U.N. spokesman said Tuesday.

Somali gunmen boarded the ship on Monday and took the crew of 10 hostage. The ship was carrying about two months worth of food aid for the 28,000 tsunami victims in Somalia.

The World Food Program will review the suspension, imposed Monday, after the crew, ship and food aid are released, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The agency currently has about two weeks worth of food stocks in the country, WFP said in a separate statement.

Piracy along the Somalia coast is common - several ships a month are attacked, if not actually hijacked, with valuables stolen and crews held for ransom. This is the first time the U.N. has reported a ship hijacked by Somali pirates.

World Food Program officials have contacted clan elders to negotiate the release of the ship and its cargo and crew.

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Malaysian backlash at Malacca risk call
By Marcus Hand
13 July 2005
Lloyd's List

MALAYSIAN Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy has lashed out at the declaration of the Malacca Strait as a war risk zone, claiming that the shipping lane is one of the safest in the world.

“If we divide the number of vessels which use the Strait of Malacca every year with the number of piracy cases, the figure is less than 0.01%,” Mr Chan he said after opening the third annual Indian Ocean Research Group international conference.

He was responding to questions over the decision by the Lloyd’s and London insurance market Joint War Committee to declare the Malacca Strait a war risk area.

He noted that the highest number of piracy incidents in the Strait was 37 in 2000.

The number of attacks compares with 60,000 merchant vessel transits a year. Recent violent pirate attacks, including kidnap for ransom, prompted the strait to be declared high risk.

Mr Chan described the committee statement as “over-dramatic”, adding: “We have to be rational and put things in perspective.”

Violent pirate attacks on vessels in the Strait have increased concern that shipping in the region could also be vulnerable to the threat of maritime terrorism.

The views of the transport minister were echoed by a Malaysian navy official.

“In fact, if you look at statistics, the Strait of Malacca is one of the safest straits in the world,” Royal Malaysian Navy assistant chief of staff First Admiral Ahmad Kamarulzaman Badaruddin told the news agency Bernama.

“The incidences [of threats] are small [in number] and relatively the risk factor is very small.”

However, in apparent recognition that there is a real problem with piracy in the strait, the Indonesian navy has launched an operation to combat the scourge.

The operation named Gurita, Indonesian for Octopus, will involve 20 warships, seven patrol boats, four aircraft and two helicopters.

The operation will cover both the Malacca and Singapore straits.

Meanwhile, Malaysia says it has no plans to increase security in the strait following last week’s terror bombings in London.

Mr Chan said it was “business as usual” in the strait.

While the London bombings have resulted in increased security on public transport in a number of countries in the region, no increased threat is seen against the shipping industry.

“We will maintain the current maritime security level because there are no indicators to increase [security] in terms of the maritime context,” Adm Kamarulzaman Badaruddin said.

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WFP threatens aid suspension to parts of Somalia over piracy

NAIROBI, July 13 (AFP) - The World Food Programme (WFP) threatened Wednesday to halt food distribution to two areas of Somalia of time unless a hijacked UN-chartered vessel carrying aid to Somali tsunami victims is released soon.

With the hijacking saga now more than two weeks old and no signs of a quick of a resolution, the agency said it was issuing the public warning in a bid to speed the release of the ship, its cargo and crew.

"We're trying to put some pressure to solve this crisis and we want it solved as soon as possible," Laura Melo, a WFP spokeswoman in Nairobi, told AFP.

"We want to put pressure on them and show the community that they must get more involved because this is affecting a very large number of people," she said, referring to WFP's earlier decision to halt food shipments into Somalia pending a resolution to the crisis which began in late June.

However, she said WFP had not set a deadline for implementing the threatened suspension and not decided on the length of any halt in food distribution.

A senior WFP official was quoted in some reports on Tuesday as saying food distribution to all of Somalia could be suspended for 10 years if the ship was not released by the Thursday.

"If this situation is not sorted out we will not provide food distribution in the two areas where the hijackers come from," Melo said. "There is a threat of suspending food distribution but not for any specific time period."

In the meantime, she said efforts to negotiate the release of the vessel, the 10-member crew and the 850 tonnes of of Japanese- and German-donated rice it was carrying without paying a ransom demanded by the pirates.

A week after the hijacking, on July 4, WFP suspended all food shipments to Somalia due to the "insecurity of Somali waters," a decision it said would be reviewed if and when the hijacked ship was released.

The ship hauling food for victims of last year's tsunami in Somalia's northeastern Puntland region was seized by hijackers in pirate-infested waters about 300 kilometers (185 miles) northeast of Mogadishu on June 27.

The hijackers have several times demanded a 500,000-dollar (415,000-euro) ransom for their release but both the WFP and the owners of the the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered MV Semlow have thus far refused.

The incident took place in waters deemed highly unsafe by marine safety authorities where both the International Maritime Board (IMB) and the United States have issued increasingly dire alerts about threats to shipping.

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Pirate attacks drop by 30 percent in first half of 2005: watchdog

KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 (AFP) - Pirate attacks worldwide dropped 30 percent in the first half of 2005 but the situation worsened in hot spots Indonesia and Somalia which suffered increasingly violent assaults, an anti-piracy watchdog said Wednesday.

The Piracy Reporting Centre of the International Maritime Bureau said the number of reported attacks worldwide decreased to 127 from 182 in the same period in 2004, with 176 crew taken hostage and 12 crew kidnapped.

The notorious Malacca Strait between Indonesia and Malaysia -- used by some 50,000 ships a year carrying a third of world trade -- enjoyed a brief respite in the two months after the December 26 tsunamis with not a single attack reported.

However, the IMB said that waters off Indonesia continued to be the world's most dangerous -- recording 42 attacks or one third of the world's total -- and that renewed incidents in the strait have also become increasingly violent.

"Violence and intimidation of crew continues to be a hallmark of these attacks, with many of the pirates armed with guns and knives," it said of attacks near Indonesia's coast.

"Since the end of February 2005, eight attacks have been reported in the Malacca Strait with increasing violence and innocent crew being abducted for ransom."

The report noted that concern over piracy in the Malacca Strait has prompted security firms based in Singapore to offer armed escorts, but said the use of private companies could raise even more problems.

Shipowners are typically reluctant to have armed personnel on board ships, and some countries such as Malaysia have said they consider armed escorts in their waters illegal.

"Private armed response will raise the level of arms used by both sides and make these waters an even more dangerous place," said the report.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said the coast of Somalia, which had seen few attacks for almost two years, suffered a resurgence of assaults by pirates with guns and grenades, with eight incidents recorded in the past three months.

In one incident pirates lured a vessel by firing off distress flares, while in four other attacks the crew were held hostage for ransom.

"Pirates operating off Somalia have become increasingly audacious," IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said in a statement.

"Their demands for ransom are higher than ever before and negotiations for the release of the vessel and crew can become difficult and prolonged."

The World Food Programme earlier this month threatened to halt food distribution to two areas of Somalia unless a hijacked UN-chartered vessel carrying aid to Somali tsunami victims is released soon.

The ship was seized about 300 kilometers (185 miles) northeast of Mogadishu on June 27.

The hijackers have several times demanded a 500,000-dollar ransom for their release but both the WFP and the owners have refused.

Elsewhere in the report, the London-based IMB identified increasing attacks off Iraq's southern Basra oil terminal as a "new and worrying trend."

In spite of coalition naval ships being close by, there had been four serious incidents since April 22, it said.

Another area of concern was around Bonny River in Nigeria, where four attacks have been recorded since May 24 thbis year.

The IMB said the anchorages of Jakarta and Balikpapan in Indonesia and Chittagong in Bangladesh had also suffered more attacks.

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Pirates say crew of hijacked UN aid ship to be released

NAIROBI, July 25 (AFP) - Gunmen have pledged to release the crew of a UN-chartered vessel carrying food aid for Somali tsunami victims which was hijacked off Somalia's coast last month, the shipowners said Monday.

After weeks of intense, delicate and frustrating negotiations, the hijackers got word to diplomats that the 10-member crew would be freed, according to Karim Kudrathi of the Motaku Shipping Agency in the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

"We have had the information (that they will be freed) from the Kenyan ambassador to Somalia but we are still waiting for their release," he told AFP by phone from Mombasa.

"We talked with the ship's captain at 1500 (1200 GMT) who told us that they had not yet left the ship," Kudrathi said, adding that only the crew and not the World Food Programme (WFP) cargo or the vessel itself would be released.

Officials in Nairobi said the gunmen would release eight Kenyan crew members but that the Sri Lankan captain and a Tanzanian engineer would remain with the ship.

"The two will remain at the ship, not essentially as hostages, but to take care of it since no one among the gunmen knows how it is operated," said a Kenyan official who had been briefed on the terms of the release.

The WFP, which chartered the ship and suspended aid deliveries to Somalia pending its release, said it was aware of reports of developments in the hijacking but could not confirm any action by the pirates.

The hijackers stormed the freighter carrying 850 tonnes of Japanese- and German-donated rice about 300 kilometers (185 miles) northeast of Mogadishu on June 27 and had been demanding a half-a-million-dollar ransom for its release.

The WFP has repeatedly refused to pay any ransom and negotiations between the hijackers, Somali elders and politicians and foreign diplomats had dragged on for weeks without any result.

The ship, the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered MV Semlow, was on its way from Mombasa to Bossaso in Somalia's northeast Puntland region when it fell afoul of the pirates in waters deemed highly unsafe by international agencies.

Both the International Maritime Board (IMB), a division of the International Chamber of Commerce, and the United States have in recent months issued increasingly dire alerts about threats to shipping off the Somali coast.

The IMB said last week that the coast of Somalia, which had seen few attacks for almost two years, has suffered a resurgence of assaults by pirates with guns and grenades, with nine incidents recorded in the past three months.

Earlier this year, the IMB advised vessels not making calls in the region to stay at least 50 miles (85 kilometers), and preferably further, from the coast of the lawless nation.

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Italian ship escapes pirates off Somalia
25 July 2005
Lloyd's List

Pirates armed with rifles and a bazooka fired on an Italian ro-ro boxship last Thursday as it travelled along the Somali coast, port authorities said, AP reports .

The ship escaped unharmed and none of the crew were hurt.

Two smaller vessels, carrying 10 people, attempted to board the 27,267 dwt, 1,182 teu Jolly Marrone some 100 miles (160 km) off the coast, a spokesman for Italy’s central port authority in Rome said.

As the master veered off and increased speed, the pirates fired on the ship and tried to pursue it but gave up after a short chase, the official said.

The spokesman, who asked that his name not be used, said no-one was wounded in the attack and added that the ship did not suffer any major damage.

The officers on board are Italians, but the total number of crew and their nationalities were not immediately known, the spokesman said.

The Linea Messina-owned ship was travelling from Mombasa, Kenya, to Djibouti. It continued on course for the East African port after the attack.

Piracy along the Somalia coast is common — several ships a month are attacked, their valuables stolen and the crews sometimes held for ransom.

Last month, Somali pirates hijacked a ship charted by the UN World Food Programme as it carried aid to tsunami victims in Somalia. The vessel and the crew are still being held.

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Maritime pirates the next big terror threat: Beazley
26 July 2005
The Australian

KIM Beazley warned yesterday that al-Qa'ida-sponsored terrorists were moving into maritime piracy in Southeast Asia and that this could become "a likely avenue of attack on us".

The Opposition Leader said regional terror groups Jemaah Islamiah and the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf group were among those raising their involvement in regional piracy and that "ought to be of considerable discomfort to us".

"If we are going to effectively deter people from using our waterways for terrorist purposes, we've got to look at things like the amount of shipping that is conducted around our coastline by flag-of-convenience ships with the potential of fraudulent papers that related to their crews as well," Mr Beazley said. "These are serious problems which we have given no attention to."

Mr Beazley also said that less than 90 per cent of shipping containers arriving in Australia were inspected.

Maritime insurers have declared the Malacca Strait, between Sumatra and Malaysia and the world's busiest sea lane, as a shipping security threat.

With eight increasingly violent pirate attacks recorded since February, Lloyd's Market Association has placed the strait on a par with Iraq as a high-risk area for war and terrorism.

The move has sparked criticism from ship owners facing higher premiums that local governments had overstated the perceived terror threat.

Abu Sayyaf was behind the Superferry bombing in February last year that killed more than 100 people -- the country's worst terrorist attack.

The Malaysia-based Piracy Reporting Centre from the International Maritime Bureau said yesterday there was no evidence al-Qa'ida had moved into piracy.

Director Noel Choong said his centre -- which tracks and monitors global piracy attacks -- "would be the first to know" if terrorists had infiltrated piracy gangs operating in the Malacca Strait and the wider Asian region. Mr Choong said he was unaware of any risk posed to Australia.

"There is speculation (about terrorists being involved in piracy) but no evidence," he said. "But we always say that you can never discount the possibility."

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has warned that JI posed "real and urgent" threats to shipping.

"We know they have been studying maritime targets," he told the International Herald Tribune.

And Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Razak, has proposed that Australia, along with the US and Japan, provide 24-hour aircraft surveillance for the Malacca Strait to help police the waterway and fight piracy.

About 50,000 ships -- carrying a quarter of the world's trade and half its oil -- pass through the Malacca Strait each year. Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, the three coastal states that share jurisdiction, initiated joint patrols last year.

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War veterans are guns for hire on the high seas; Armed patrols spark fears of violent clashes with pirates
Nick Meo
31 July 2005
South China Morning Post

Special-forces veterans are being hired by shipping companies to protect vessels from the growing menace of pirates in the Malacca Strait.

But this has raised fears they could escalate violence in one of the world's riskiest and most important sea routes that is a lifeline for Hong Kong and southern China trade.

Security companies are rushing to set up lucrative private navies for the seaway between Indonesia and Malaysia, which carries half the world's oil and more than 50,000 ships a year, to counter the threat from increasingly well-organised pirate gangs armed with machine guns and grenade launchers.

A report by the International Maritime Bureau last week warned that there had been a rise in violent incidents against crews last year, including four murders, although the number of attacks in Indonesian waters and the strait fell from 77 to 56.

December's tsunami caused a temporary drop in the attacks, probably because pirates were themselves hit, but there are worries that more desperate men from affected communities will now turn to piracy.

The first security company targeting the strait started operating from Singapore a year ago and five more have set up in the city state since, including British and American firms. Others are considering moving in, including companies with experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But government officials from countries along the strait have expressed concern at having heavily armed groups operating in or near their waters and the UN's International Maritime Organisation has warned that armed guards could spark dangerous clashes at sea with pirates.

The first company to offer its services to shipping firms was Background Asia Risk Solutions, which formerly specialised in kidnap and ransom operations.

The firm now has 60 former soldiers and policemen from the US and Commonwealth countries, who provide armed protection on board vessels or accompany them in a chartered patrol boat.

Managing director Alex Duperouzel said: "We are not in the business of eradicating piracy, but suppressing it and protecting our clients."

His firm accompanies about six vessels a month. The price is typically about US$100,000 per mission. So far they have not opened fire, but Mr Duperouzel says his men, including former special forces personnel, have been involved in confrontations with suspected pirates - who have always backed off when weapons are displayed.

One group of pirates warned off by his men later attacked another vessel, firing on it for 90 minutes.

There are believed to be 12 to 15 pirate gangs operating in the strait, based in lawless parts of southern Thailand and Indonesia, each with about 50 men and some allegedly with links to terrorist organisations like Jemaah Islamiah and to the Acehnese insurgent group GAM.

Security experts fear terrorists could attempt to hijack an oil tanker and turn it into a floating bomb to be piloted into a port city such as Singapore. A more common menace is kidnapping ship's masters - the going rate for ransom in the region is about US$120,000 - or stealing the cargo.

Ships have even been repainted and sold on by organised gangs, some of which are believed to have strong links to local politicians.

Mr Duperouzel said: "At the moment we are protecting a miniscule number of the ships which come through the straits. The masters we accompany are certainly glad of our protection, though.

"If you are attacked by pirates on the ocean, it can be hours before help arrives, and an attack might be over in 20 minutes. We can protect a ship or do whatever it takes to recover a ship or crew."

Worried Malaysian government officials have warned that such security groups "could be trigger-happy". The International Maritime Organisation also has expressed reservations about the new business. A spokesman said: "The carrying and use of firearms for personal protection or protection of a ship is strongly discouraged.

"This may encourage attackers to carry firearms, thereby escalating an already dangerous situation. Any firearms on board may themselves become an attractive target for an attacker."

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Ship firms to fight Malacca Strait 'war risk' rating
Decision on trade artery 'shows cost of terrorism starting to bite'
Greg Torode and Raymond Ma
31 July 2005
South China Morning Post

Hong Kong's biggest shipowners are leading a regional charge to overturn a move by an influential group of London insurers to class the Malacca Strait a "war risk".

The rating reflects concerns that al-Qaeda could exploit piracy in the strait to attack ships.

Shipping industry figures fear the resulting higher premiums could upset delicately balanced trade through the strait, which funnels oil and raw materials to China and the rest of North Asia and manufactured goods to Europe.

Flanked by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, the strait remains a hotbed of piracy. But the shipping companies say it is unfair and highly unusual to class it as a war zone.

The Joint War Committee insurers' grouping based in London, whose decisions are generally followed internationally, cited a private defence report that warns of an al-Qaeda attack on a "significant maritime target" this year.

The report by Aegis Defence Services says global logistics are now so finely tuned "that any disruption to the delivery of oil or gas to North Asia, or goods whose manufacturing has been outsourced to Asia for sale in Europe, would have fundamental negative economic consequences".

Arthur Bowring, managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners' Association, said his group was deeply worried at the impact of the war risk assessment. Members include Cosco, China Navigation and Orient Overseas Container Line, the family firm of former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa. Mr Bowring warned it could hit economies across the region as increased costs inevitably flowed down industry supply chains.

"We are very concerned at the labelling of the Malacca Strait as a war risk. It is, of course, one of the world's biggest economic arteries and therefore this could impact Asia's economies," he said. "We need to find valid reasons to overturn the underwriters' move and I'm confident this can be done."

The association already has made its opposition known through a submission on behalf of the Asian Shipowners' Forum to the International Chamber of Shipping, which met the Joint War Committee in London on Thursday. No fresh decision emerged, apart from a pledge to hold further talks in London in two weeks. The association will represent the forum directly, along with regional governments.

A director of a prominent Hong Kong shipping-sector firm warned that the impact could be huge.

"We are all waiting to see quite how high these premiums are going to go," he said. "The Malacca Strait is our lifeline and it is just absurd to describe it as a war zone. It is a sign that the cost of terrorism is really starting to bite."

The director said the strait was no more a war zone than London or New York.

Daniel Poon Wing-choi, assistant chief economist with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, said: "It will add cost to Hong Kong exporters.

"Many of the Hong Kong exporters' products are under threat because their margins are very thin. This, in turn, is due to keen competition in their respective industries. One such industry is the garment sector in Hong Kong, since there are no quotas this year."

[hkskyline]

Anger at Malacca Strait risk label.
By JOHN BURTON
5 August 2005
Financial Times

Local governments and regional shipowners have criticised a recent move by London underwriters to designate the Malacca Strait as a "high risk" area that will raise insurance rates for the 50,000 vessels that annually use Asia's main waterway.

Shipowners are taking issue with a risk assessment provided to the Joint War Committee (JWC) of Lloyd's Market Association by Aegis Defence Services, a UK-based security consultancy.

Aegis, whose main shareholders include Frederick Forsyth, the thriller writer, has warned that al-Qaeda terrorists could hijack a tanker in the Malacca Strait and turn it into a large floating bomb. Other maritime experts have questioned the feasibility of this.

Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia this week asked the JWC to reconsider its decision, while the Singapore Shipping Association said the risk assessment was based on a "fundamental misunderstanding" of piracy and terrorism threats in the Malacca Strait. The Hong Kong Shipowners Association has also questioned the decision.

The shipping groups criticised the JWC for relying on only one source - Aegis - to assess risks in the Malacca Strait. The SSA noted piracy attacks in the region have been declining this year and they have been against mainly small coastal vessels instead of ocean-going ships, while there has been no report of "al-Qaeda inspired action".

The underwriters' group said it would hold a briefing with industry officials this month to explain its decision, announced in June. "Placing the Malacca Strait on the (war risk) list is highly emotive since it involves many people," said Ken Alston, managing director for marine, hull and liability practices at Marsh, a leading global insurance broker. "It is rare for a waterway, particularly one as busy as the Malacca Strait, to be put on the list."

Marsh estimates shipowners will face additional insurance premiums of about Dollars 50m (Euros 40m, Pounds 28m) annually. "Although the amount may be relatively small, shipowners will also have to hire more staff to comply with the paperwork involved. It will be a logistical nightmare to comply" because shipowners have to inform insurance underwriters of plans to navigate in waters of countries on the list. But the biggest impact may be felt by countries along the Malacca Strait since they could lose port business if shipowners found alternative routes, he said.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates said to renew ransom demands for hijacked UN food ship

MOGADISHU, Aug 9 (AFP) - Somali pirates who hijacked a UN-charted food aid ship in late June have renewed ransom demands for the release of the vessel and its crew, scuppering a deal for their freedom, clan elders in Somalia said Tuesday.

Amid conflicting accounts over whether the gunmen holding the freighter had agreed to unconditionally release the ship as announced by the World Food Programme (WFP) at the weekend, they said the hijackers remained in control of the vessel.

"The militiamen that took the ship will not release it unless two of their demands are met," said Ahmed Abdi, an elder in Somalia's Haradere district near where the MV Semlow was being held offshore.

"They want the food to be unloaded in Haradere or 500,000 dollars be paid as they demanded earlier," he told AFP by radio. "The hijackers offered no guarantee of release and further negotiations are required."

Another elder, who asked to remain anonymous, said he believed the reported agreement -- under which the ship, 10-member crew and cargo were to have been released by Monday or Tuesday -- had fallen through.

"There is no way the crew can go without further negotiations," the man said. "I hope the negotiations would be helpful for the release of the crew members before more complications are created."

A radio operator in Haradere said there signs of a split between the hijackers with one group rejecting the WFP-announced agreement negotiated by elders, community leaders and officials from Somalia's transitional government.

"If the militiamen fight each other that would come with serious security risks to the ship and its crew members," the operator said.

The WFP on Saturday announced that after protracted negotiations, elders and clan leaders had agreed on behalf of the pirates that the ship, crew and cargo would be freed unconditionally within three days.

Under the deal, the 850 tonnes of German- and Japanese-donated rice the MV Semlow is carrying were to be offloaded at the port of El Maan near Mogadishu and the ship and crew -- eight Kenyans, a Tanzanian engineer and a Sri Lankan captain -- allowed to return to their home port of Mombasa in Kenya.

At the time, the ship's owners had expressed skepticism over the reported agreement and on Tuesday they told AFP they had heard nothing from the ship or crew. WFP officials in Nairobi said they, too, were unaware of any developments.

The hijackers seized the the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered ship some 300 kilometres (185 miles) northeast of the capital Mogadishu on June 27 and demanded the 500,000-dollar (404,000-euro) ransom for its release.

The ship was on its way from Mombasa to Bossaso in Somalia's northeast Puntland region when it fell afoul of the pirates in waters deemed highly unsafe by international agencies.

Both the International Maritime Board (IMB), a division of the International Chamber of Commerce, and the United States have in recent months issued increasingly dire alerts about threats to shipping off the Somali coast.

The IMB said this week that the coast of Somalia, which had seen few attacks for almost two years, has suffered a resurgence of assaults by pirates with guns and grenades, with nine incidents recorded since mid-July.

[hkskyline]

Joint War Committee to hold peace talks with owners on Malacca Strait
10 August 2005
Lloyd's List

SHIPOWNERS are set to meet a key group of Lloyd’s players later this month in a bid to reverse the unpopular Malacca Strait war-risk designation, which is expected to lead to higher premiums for ships using the waterway, writes David Osler.

The Joint War Committee of the Lloyd’s Market Association has faced widespread protests since the June decision. Aegis Defence Services — a London-based specialist security consultancy which advised on the decision — has also drawn some flak.

Leading the critics have been the governments of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Many shipowners are unhappy at having to pay more out in hull insurance as a result of the move.

The shipowners’ associations of both Singapore and Hong Kong have expressed concern.

The most recent recruit to the campaign is BIMCO, which yesterday issued a statement implicitly calling for the JWC to remove the Malacca Strait from its risk list. Matters will come to a head at a meeting in London between the JWC, Aegis and leading shipping trade associations, hosted by the International Chamber of Shipping, on August 16.

Neal Roberts of the JWC secretariat said: “We are going to the meeting to explain why the area is on the list.” He declined to comment on whether the body would stick to its stance.

However, other observers do not see back-pedalling as likely. “It would be so damaging to the credibility of the JWC,” one security specialist said. Others contended that the Malacca Strait does carry additional risk so it is not unreasonable for underwriters to seek higher premiums.

- Thailand is likely to be invited to join Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in their recently announced ‘eye in the sky’ initiative, according to local media reports.

The three littoral states around the Malacca Strait are seeking round-the-clock aeroplane security patrols.

However, they lack sufficient aircraft and have rejected offers of help from the US and China.

[hkskyline]

Three nations coordinate flights to spy on Malacca pirates
Fresh attacks on cargo ships in strategic Strait prompt new security efforts
Nachammai Raman Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
17 August 2005

Half the world's oil and a third of its commerce travels through the Malacca Strait, a narrow channel of water off Indonesia. So when a major maritime underwriter in London added the Malacca Strait to its list of high-risk war zones, global traders took notice.

The decision in June by Lloyd's Market Association's Joint War Committee threatens to raise the cost of international business by driving up ship owners' insurance premiums. The move follows a resurgence of pirate attacks in the Strait, which had enjoyed a brief period of calm during the presence of international navies conducting tsunami relief operations. Concerns have also mounted since Sept. 11, 2001, that terrorists may target the shipping bottleneck using similar tactics as pirates.

These concerns have forced the three principal states sharing the Malacca Strait, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, to propose adding aerial reconnaissance to a joint naval patrol program put into place last year. While critics doubt this latest step, announced this month, will dramatically improve security, the measure represents a greater willingness among the three countries to work together.

"If you look at the political context of the region, there was friction. To get the Malaysian, Singaporean, and Indonesian navies together was a very big step," says an official at the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, who requested anonymity.

Sovereignty has been a key sticking point in the effective patrolling of the Strait of Malacca. Both Malaysia and Indonesia have been wary of signing on to any program that would require a curtailment of their sovereign rights over areas of the waterway, which some 50,000 ships pass through every year. Singapore, however, has been more open.

Up to this point, the current patrol operations have not been truly joint, says Alan Chan, a ship owner in Singapore. The patrol forces of each state stay more or less within their own borders, leaving significant gaps for pirates - and by extrapolation, terrorists - to penetrate, according to Mr. Chan.

At least eight violent attacks have taken place in the Malacca Strait since February, according to the International Chamber of Commerce. Pirates target vessels carrying anything that can be easily sold. Attacks typically happen close to the coast.

The possibility of US intervention has put pressure on all three countries to work together more closely to combat the problem. "If they didn't do something, then the Americans would come in," says Mr. Ong.

That's a prospect that many people here regard as more dangerous than helpful.

"Presence of American troops in the Strait of Malacca could lead to some kind of reaction from terrorists," says Chan. And if there is violence in territorial waters, he says it could lead to diplomatic squabbles and standoffs. "Once people start shooting in territorial waters, then the question of sovereignty is sharpened."

Both Ong and Chan question the effectiveness of the proposed air surveillance operations. Pirates in the Strait strike at night in small vessels disguised as fishing boats, says Chan. "How can you tell which is a real fishing boat and which is not from up in the sky at night?"

In any case, the three countries do not have enough aerial surveillance equipment for the program. They are scouting around for it from countries like the US and Japan, which are interested in helping secure the waterway, particularly since many of the Southeast Asian terrorist outfits operate close to the Strait.

A major terrorist strike, such as blowing up an oil tanker in the Strait, could force a major rerouting of international shipping. However, Rohan Gunaratna of Singapore's Institute for Defense and Strategic Planning doesn't think an attack in the waterway will have more than "medium" repercussions. "It will not cripple sea transportation."

According to Ong, the probability of a terrorist attack is less than 1 percent. "But you can only be unlucky once. The waters here are not secure enough."

[hkskyline]

Malaysia urges Lloyd's to remove Malacca Strait from security threat list

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29 (AFP) - Malaysia on Monday urged an international insurance body to remove the Malacca Strait from a list of waterways deemed dangerous, saying ships are safe from terror attacks and piracy is contained.

Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore were working closely to ensure security in the 960-kilometre (600 mile) long passage, used by 50,000 ships a year that carry one-third of world trade, Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy told AFP.

"There is no threat of terror in the Malacca Strait," he said. "And the threat of piracy is contained. The waterway is safe for ships."

Chan urged insurance companies not to impose security premiums on vessels plying the busy route, saying: "I don't think it is fair to impose additional premiums. I hope the Malacca Strait is withdrawn from the list."

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has listed the strait, and the waters around Indonesia, as among the world's worst for piracy, and some regional governments believe ships could be targeted by terrorists.

Last year the Malacca Strait recorded 38 pirate attacks, second only to Indonesian waters, which saw 94 attacks, the IMB said.

The Lloyd's Market Association's Joint War Committee in July added the strait to a list of 20 areas worldwide -- alongside Iraq, Lebanon and Nigeria -- that it deemed security threats to shipping.

The LMA is an insurance body that advises members of Lloyd's of London.

As a result, some underwriters may impose an additional premium of 0.01 percent on ships plying the strait, the Malaysian Shipowners' Association's secretary-general Captain Hasnan Anwar told AFP.

"This is an additional cost burden for shipowners for no reason," he said, pointing out that the extra charge on insuring a 2-million-dollar ship, not counting its cargo, would be 2,000 dollars.

"And not only that -- it gives an impression to the world that the Malacca Strait is not safe."

He added: "There has not been any terrorist attacks in the Malacca Strait or any evidence of a possible Al-Qaeda attack in the strait."

Noel Choong, head of the IMB's Piracy Reporting Centre, agreed there was no evidence of pirate-terrorist links and said: "The pirates are only looking for financial gains, as shown by recent pirate attacks."

Malaysia is "serious and committed to ensure maritime security", he said, pointing to an operation last week in which police commandos boarded a hijacked cargo ship following a 17-hour chase through the strait.

To combat the recent increase in pirate attacks, Malaysia has said it will deploy police on tugboats and barges plying the waterway.

Malaysia has, however, rejected suggestions that the United States or other foreign navies be allowed to help patrol the strait.

[hkskyline]

China Gives Cambodia Patrol Boats To Combat Crimes At Sea
1 September 2005

PHNOM PENH (AP)--China has given Cambodia six patrol boats to help the impoverished Southeast Asian country combat smuggling and other crimes at sea, an official said Friday.

The boats were handed over to Cambodian officials during a ceremony in the coastal city of Sihanoukville Thursday, said Duong Saroeun, the city police chief.

He said the cost of the boats was estimated at $1 million.

An official at the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh said the boats were given to help Cambodian maritime police in their efforts to crack down on drug trafficking, human smuggling and piracy.

Three of the boats have the capacity to carry 30 men and the other three can hold about 10, said the official, who demanded anonymity.

The gift signified continued cooperation between Cambodia and China, the official said.

China has provided Cambodia with hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and loans in recent years.

The two countries have forged close ties despite China's record of having been a key backer of the Khmer Rouge regime whose radical policies led to the death of some 1.7 million people in the late 1970s.

[hkskyline]

Three Taiwanese fishing boats hijacked off Somalia

TAIPEI, Sept 1 (AFP) - Three Taiwanese fishing boats have been hijacked off the coast of Somalia and pirates are threatening to kill dozens of crewmen unless the shipowners pay a total ransom of 1.5 million US dollars, officials said Thursday.

The Chung Yi 218, Cheng Ching Feng and Hsin Lien Feng 36 were seized separately in mid-August, said Taiwan's foreign ministry spokesman Michel Lu.

"We received the appeal for help from the ships' owners on August 24," Lu said.

"They said the hijackers had demanded a ransom of 500,000 US dollars for each ship and the crew and threatened to kill them all if the demanded amount was not paid," he said, adding that details of the events were sketchy.

There are about 20 crew on board each of the 95-tonne ships. Except for Taiwanese skippers and several senior officers, the other sailors come from the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, Lu said.

Rescue efforts have been under way through different diplomatic channels, Lu said. "As of now all the crew are safe."

Somalia was plunged into anarchy after strongman Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991 and the country disintegrated into a patchwork of fiefdoms run by unruly warlords and clan militia chiefs.

[azimo]

why don't they just ban somalia then from maritime link network, so that its govt does smthng about it.

[hkskyline]

why don't they just ban somalia then from maritime link network, so that its govt does smthng about it.
Somalia lies on a major sea trade route. Ships heading between Europe and Sea through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea will pass through the Gulf of Aden. Somalia lies on the south side of that Gulf.

http://www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/~ladzekpo/Kusum/africa%20map%202.jpg

[hkskyline]

Thailand to join other nations to fight piracy in Malacca Straits
03 September 2005

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AP) - Thailand on Saturday agreed to join Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore in coordinated air patrols over the pirate-infested Straits of Malacca to quell foreign jitters over security in the strategic shipping lane.

The three Southeast Asian countries last month announced an "Eyes in the Sky" initiative to counter the piracy which has plagued the straits for centuries.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, speaking at a joint press conference with his Singapore counterpart Lee Hsien Loong, said his country would participate in the initiative in order to bolster security in the region.

Lee and four of his ministers held a joint cabinet meeting Saturday with Thaksin's government in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

"The Malacca Straits is not just a problem for the countries that are right there on the border. If we have problems at the Malacca Straits, it is bad for the whole of Southeast Asia," Lee said.

Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkon said that as a state bordering the straits, Thailand would be working closely with other nations, including sea and patrols.

The United States has previously proposed sending troops to protect the 900-kilometer (550-mile) strait, which many fear could become a staging ground for international terrorists who might try to seize a ship, sail it into a harbor and set off a massive explosion.

However, Malaysia and Indonesia have opposed the presence of U.S. troops, preferring Southeast Asian nations to patrol the straits themselves.

Thailand has already signed an agreement on combating sea piracy in Asia, under which the country will share information with the other signatories -- Singapore, Japan, Cambodia, and Laos.

Officials have reported 37 attacks last year in the waterway, which is used by more than 50,000 ships a year, carrying half the world's oil and a third of its commerce.

Singaporean and Thai ministers also discussed ways to foster cooperation in food and agriculture, transport, financial services, tourism and auto parts.

[hkskyline]

Indonesia criticizes insurer's decision to class Malacca Strait a 'war risk' zone
7 September 2005

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesia criticized on Wednesday a decision by a leading international shipping insurer to designate the Malacca Strait a "war risk area," which has increased premiums for vessels using the waterway.

Lloyds in July included the Malacca Strait on its list of the 20 most dangerous waterways in the world.

But Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said the decision was "erroneous" because none of the countries bordering the strait were at war with each other, and a recent deal had brought peace to Aceh province in the channel's northern approaches.

"It is difficult to understand how Lloyds should consider the strait a 'war risk' zone," he said at a two-day international conference on security in the world's busiest shipping lane.

More than 50,000 ships, carrying half the world's oil and a third of its commerce, use the route each year.

The waterway, which is bordered by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, is infested by pirates and there are fears international terrorists might target ships passing through it.

According to the International Maritime Bureau there were eight pirate attacks in the first seven months of the year, down from 20 in the same timeframe in 2004, partly because pirates were deterred by a large naval presence after the Dec. 26 tsunami.

The three littoral states, the International Maritime Organization and the Global Environment Facility of the World Bank plan to launch a scheme -- the Marine Electronic Highway, or MOH -- to monitor ships passing through the waterway after the meeting.

Wirayuda said the facility, based on Indonesia's Batam Island, will develop and establish "a marine highway system in the strait for enhanced maritime services, improved navigational safety, integrated marine environment protection and sustainable development of the coastal and marine resources."

Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia began coordinated patrols last year but have rejected a foreign military presence in the waterway.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates slash ransom demand for Taiwanese and others hostages
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
6 September 2005

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Somali pirates holding 48 Asian fishermen and their three vessels have lowered their ransom demand during government-brokered negotiations, a human rights activist said.

The gunmen, who have been holding the fishermen and their vessels near the southern Somali port of Kismayo since Aug. 15, originally demanded US$500,000 (euro399,000) for each of the three boats and their crews. They agreed to accept US$50,000 (euro39,900) during negotiations with the Malaysian agent for the Taiwan trawlers, Ali Bashi, chairman of the Fanole Human Rights Center, said Tuesday.

The hostages include three Taiwanese captains and 45 crew members from Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Somalia's Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullahi Sheik Ishmail, in comments to the local media, acknowledged negotiating a ransom could damage the country's already poor international image, but said officials had to act to ensure the safety of foreign hostages.

Piracy has been common along the coast of this chaotic country. Several ships a month are attacked or hijacked, with valuables stolen and crews held for ransom. The MV Semlow, a ship carrying World Food Program supplies to Somali victims of last December's tsunami, has been held by gunmen since late June.

Rene McGuffin, a Kenya-based WFP spokeswoman, said via e-mail Tuesday that the U.N. organization continued to call for "the immediate release of the MV Semlow, its crew and its cargo."

The London-based International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy around the world, said last month that piracy off Somalia was increasing "at an alarming rate," with 20 incidents reported since March, compared to just two in 2004. IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said Tuesday the reasons for the increase were unclear.

The deal for the Asian fisherman was brokered by officials in Somalia's transitional government, including the Minister for Reconstruction Barre Aadan Shire -- whose Juba Valley Alliance controls the region, Bashi said.

Taiwanese officials had asked for international help in contacting the gunmen, and talked to the hostage-takers last week in an effort to negotiate a lower ransom.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Warlords then turned on each other, plunging the country of 7 million into chaos.

[azimo]

Somalia lies on a major sea trade route. Ships heading between Europe and Sea through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea will pass through the Gulf of Aden. Somalia lies on the south side of that Gulf.

http://www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/~ladzekpo/Kusum/africa%20map%202.jpg

what I meant hk was stop using its ports for docking, refuling etc in doing so they will lose tarifs collection and much other needed revenue that comes along with import export, this way they will hurt economically for the govt to step in.

[hkskyline]

Malaysia says Malacca Strait safe for ships, plays down attack fears

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 12 (AFP) - Malaysia on Monday said the Malacca Strait was safe for seafarers, playing down the fears of some regional governments which believe the vital waterway is a tempting target for terrorists.

Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy said joint air patrols with Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to be launched Tuesday would further bolster security in the strait.

"The strait is very safe and the agreement is to beef up existing joint efforts in safeguarding the security of the strait," he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency.

"To say it's dangerous, exposed to all kinds of threat, it's exaggeration," he added.

Defence ministers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand on Tuesday will sign an agreement to launch the "eye in the skies" air patrols.

The three littoral states of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have already begun coordinated sea patrols but agreed last month to boost surveillance with joint air patrols.

The Malacca Strait is one of the world's most important waterways, with 50,000 ships carrying about one-third of the globe's trade passing through it each year.

However the strait, 960 kilometres (600 miles) long and 1.2 kilometres wide at its narrowest, is vulnerable to pirate attacks and some governments in the region also believe it is a tempting target for terrorists.

Last month Malaysia urged an international insurance body to remove the Malacca Strait from a list of waterways deemed dangerous, saying ships were safe from terror attacks and piracy was contained.

Malaysia is fast expanding its ports such as Port Klang that sits on the Malacca Strait.

An international insurance body has declared the strait dangerous and some underwriters may impose additional premiums for ships plying the strait, which could affect traffic at Malaysian ports.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has listed the strait, and the waters around Indonesia, as among the world's worst for piracy, and some regional governments believe ships could be targeted by terrorists.

Last year the Malacca Strait recorded 38 pirate attacks, second only to Indonesian waters, which saw 94 attacks, the IMB said.

The Lloyd's Market Association's Joint War Committee in July added the strait to a list of 20 areas worldwide -- alongside Iraq, Lebanon and Nigeria -- that it deemed security threats to shipping.

The LMA is an insurance body that advises members of Lloyd's of London.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates let hijacked food ship sail

NAIROBI, Sept 15 (AFP) - Somali gunmen who hijacked a UN-chartered vessel carrying food aid for tsunami victims have let the vessel and crew sail to the port of El-Maan, north of the capital Mogadishu, UN officials said Thursday.

But it was not clear whether the boat, MV Semlow, which was hijacked on June 27, would be allowed to return to the home port of Mombasa in Kenya, after offloading about 850 tonnes of German- and Japanese-donated rice in El-Maan port.

Nor were the circumstances that led to the ship's release clear, given a ransom demand that had been put to its owners by the pirates. This has gone without comment from concerned parties.

The vessel and its 10-member crew -- eight Kenyans, a Tanzanian engineer and a Sri Lankan captain -- had been held in the Somali port town of Haradere, about 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of Mogadishu.

"We can confirm that the ship is on its way to El-Maan and we expect it to take three to five days to get there," UN World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Rene McGuffin told AFP.

The pirates seized the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered ship which was on its way from Mombasa to Bossaso transporting food to victims of last year's tsunami.

They demanded a ransom of 500,000 dollars (404,000 euros) but it was not known how owners of the ship handled the demand.

"WFP was not asked for ransom," McGuffin said.

She added the UN food body has negotiated with port authorities in El-Mann to ensure a smooth passage of the cargo to the transitional federal government (TFG), which operates from the provincial town of Jowhar, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of Mogadishu.

"WFP has negotiated with port authorities in El-Maan to facilitate free passage of the food to the central region. The food will be handed over to the TFG," McGuffin added.

Officials refused to confirm the vessel had been definitively released, given the unreliability of hijackers in the shattered African nation that has been wracked by violence since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.

Somali officials in the Kenyan capital said the vessel was allowed to sail under a deal struck in July between the transitional administration and the hijackers.

Broadly under the deal, the food would be handed over to the administration, which will in turn distribute it to drought-stricked areas in central and southern Somalia, where interclan fighting has hampered arrival of relief supplies.

"I can confirm that no ransom was paid for the deal," said an official with the Somali administration, who did not want to be named.

Fine details remain shrouded in secrecy, but sources close to both sides said the hijackers were promised rewards.

Kenya's ambassador to Somalia Mohamed Abdi Affey, who runs his office from Nairobi, sounded sceptical, saying freedom for the 10 hostages would be confirmed by their arrival in Mombasa.

"Let us see the people and ship in Kenya. That is the time to trust that they are free," Affey told AFP here.

Since the seizure, hijacker have given false promises of releasing the vessel, only to modify the ransom demands.

Both the International Maritime Board (IMB), a division of the International Chamber of Commerce, and the United States have in recent months issued increasingly dire alerts about threats to shipping off the Somali coast.

In August, the IMB said the coast of Somalia, which had seen few attacks for almost two years, has suffered a resurgence of assaults by pirates with guns and grenades, with nine incidents recorded since mid-July.

[Nemo]

Wow, those Somalis are really active. I thought the Phillipines were Pirate hotspots, but it seems that Somalia has taken over this questionable honour.

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New ship hijacking reported in pirate-infested waters off Somali coast

MOGADISHU, Sept 26 (AFP) - Somali gunmen who hijacked a UN-chartered food aid vessel in June have seized another commercial ship off the eastern coast of the lawless Horn of Africa nation, militia officials said Monday.

The unidentified freighter, which was transporting cement from Egypt to Somalia when it was seized late Saturday, is being held near the town of Haradere, about 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of Mogadishu, along with the UN vessel, they said.

The number of crew on board, the tonnage of the ship's cargo and its registration were not immediately known, they said.

The militia officials and residents of Mogadishu said the owner of the cement cargo had spoken with the captain of the ship. He confirmed the ship was hijacked by the same gunmen who on June 27 seized the MV Semlow, which was transporting rice to Somalia for the World Food Programme (WFP).

Last week, the WFP said the gunmen, who had been demanding a ransom for the release of the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered Semlow, had reneged on a deal to free the vessel, its 10-man crew and cargo.

Also last week, the US State Department renewed its regional terrorism alert for east Africa, noting in particular increasingly violent attempts by Somali pirates to seize commercial ships.

In its weekly piracy report issued on Tuesday, the International Maritime Bureau said at least 21 attacks had been recorded off the Somali coast since March 15 and urged ships in the area to stay as far as possible from the shore.

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Crew tells how pirates hijacked a U.N.-chartered ship for 100 days
By RODRIQUE NGOWI
Associated Press Writer
5 October 2005

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - The captain of a U.N.-chartered ship described how 15 gunmen in speedboats took control of the vessel in 15 minutes and held it for 100 days along Somalia's coast, absconding with money but leaving most of its cargo of food intact.

In an exclusive interview Wednesday with Associated Press Television News aboard the MV Semlow, crew members told how they were on a mission to deliver food to Somalia's tsunami victims when speedboats pulled alongside the ship on June 27 and opened fire.

Capt. S. Mahalingam, a Sri Lankan, said that within minutes, 15 gunmen had climbed aboard the ship and taken command of the vessel, which is registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The pirates demanded that he open the safe before they ransacked the crews' quarters and took anything of value.

Then came the most frightening part for Kenyan crewman Patrick Ogudu, an interrogation of sorts by the nervous pirates.

"The question that scared me the most was when they wanted to know the religion of the people on the ship," said Ogudu, himself a Christian, while standing on the bullet-scarred bridge. "I decided to name myself Abubakar, to be in a safe position."

But as the days passed and the pirates and crew reached an uneasy understanding, Ogudu said he never saw the pirates pray. The only time they appeared to care about Islam was when Ogudu moved a Quran without washing his hands first.

The gunmen were freelance militia men, members of one of Somalia's many criminal gangs who depend on hijacking and kidnapping for money.

Somalia has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. They then turned on each other, transforming this nation of 7 million into a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.

Some of those militias specialize in setting up toll stations on important roads, others hire themselves out as bodyguards. The young militiamen on the MV Semlow were pirates and they had obviously done this many times before.

The International Maritime Organization has warned most mariners to stay away from Somalia's coast because of the dozens of hijackings that have taken place over the years. The IMO considers the waters among the most dangerous in the world.

But this hijacking was different: It was the first time a United Nations ship had been taken while on a humanitarian mission to Somalia.

The United States and NATO have a maritime task force permanently based in the Arabian Gulf off Somalia and have intervened several times in the last year to save ships under attack by pirates, but they are not allowed to operate within Somalia's territorial waters, and therefore could not help the MS Semlow.

Somalia's 3,025-kilometer (1,880-mile) coastline is the longest in Africa.

The World Food Program suspended food aid to Somalia on July 4 and refused to pay a ransom demanded by the pirates, which they called a fine for violating Somali law. At one point, the gunmen declared themselves to be Somalia's coast guard, though a new transitional government trying to take charge of Somalia disowned the gunmen.

In August, the WFP resumed food aid to the millions of Somalis who depend on the organization for food. The WFP was depending on clan elders to negotiate the unconditional release of the ship, the captain, the Tanzanian engineer and the eight Kenyan crewmen.

On Sept. 14, they thought they had secured a deal for the ship's release, but the pirates apparently decided at the last minute to demand another ransom and instead use the MS Semlow on Sept. 23 to seize an Egyptian ship carrying cement, the MS Ibnu Batuta.

After more negotiations, and after the MS Semlow ran out of fuel, the hijackers eventually allowed the MS Ibnu Batuta to tow the MS Semlow to the port of El Maan. Along the way, the gunmen left the ship by speedboat and the ships were free, with most of the MS Semlow's 850 metric tons (937 tons) of rice still on board.

The WFP issued a statement Wednesday confirming that the ship was indeed safe and the food was being unloaded in El Maan, after which the ship would sail for Kenya.

When the captain was asked whether he had ever seen pirate before in his 20-year career, he laughed out loud. "You think it is a frequent occasion?"

But in Somalia, pirates indeed strike on a regular basis. Another group of Somali gunmen seized 48 Asian fishermen and three vessels near the southern Somali port of Kismayo on Aug. 15. They are still being held hostage.

[hkskyline]

Somali hijackers release U.N.-chartered ship with food aid
By TOM MALITI
Associated Press Writer
14 October 2005

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Hijackers Friday released a U.N.-chartered ship carrying food aid and a crew of 10 following successful negotiations with a Somali businessman, officials said.

Gunmen released the MV Miltzow after a Somali contractor, hired by the U.N. World Food Program to handle the food aid, negotiated with them, said Karim Kudrati, managing director of Motaku Shipping Agency, the Kenyan company that owns the ship.

Kudrati said he was not aware any ransom was paid.

The crew was unharmed and the food aid was untouched, said Leo van der Velden, the WFP deputy director for Somalia.

The MV Miltzow was the second ship carrying food aid hijacked in Somalia this year, and the agency said it was considering alternative overland routes to transport food aid.

Six gunmen stormed the St. Vincent and the Grenadines-registered ship Wednesday, forcing the crew to leave the port of Merka, 62 miles southwest of Somalia's capital of Mogadishu.

"We are very relieved that the crew are all unharmed and that the food aid is intact," van der Velden said. "Fortunately, this particular shipment is only slightly delayed, but with two hijackings in three months we will have to consider alternatives to secure the safety of both the people and food involved in our operations."

On Thursday, Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi urged neighboring countries to send warships to patrol his lawless nation's waters.

Gedi told The Associated Press that his government -- which has yet to take control of the country -- did not have the resources to protect shipping along Somalia's 1,880-mile coastline, Africa's longest.

Somalia has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. They then turned on each other, transforming this nation of 7 million into a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.

Gedi's transitional government, formed in 2004 after lengthy peace talks in Kenya, raised some hope for the Horn of Africa country. But members of the transitional government have been fighting among themselves in recent months and have made little progress in establishing themselves, spending much of their time in neighboring Kenya.

Nearly half the MV Miltzow's cargo of 850 tons of food aid was on board when it was seized. The ship was carrying 703 tons of maize, 108 tons of beans and 39 tons of vegetable oil for people living in Somalia's vulnerable Lower Juba Valley.

Kudrati said that the MV Miltzow was sailing back to Merka on Friday to unload the cargo.

The ship had arrived in port Monday from Mombasa, Kenya. Its crew consists of a Kenyan captain, an Ugandan engineer and eight Kenyan crew members.

On June 27, gunman hijacked the MV Semlow and held the vessel for 100 days before it was released Oct. 4. Motaku Shipping Agency then sent a ship to help the MV Semlow with its mechanical problems. That ship was hijacked and is still being held by Somali pirates.

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Somalia appeals for international help to combat pirates in its waters
By RODRIQUE NGOWI
22 October 2005

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Somalia's government appealed Saturday for international help to combat pirates, who have used speed boats, automatic weapons and satellite phones to target U.N.-chartered ships and other vessels.

The appeal came a day after the International Maritime Bureau reported an alarming increase in attacks off the southern and eastern coast of Somalia and appealed to U.S. and NATO warships in the region to protect vessels sailing near the Somali coast, an important shipping route connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean.

Pirates have launched 23 attacks against ships off anarchic Somalia since March 15, the London-based International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy around the world, said on its web site.

Somalia has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. They then turned on each other, transforming this nation of 7 million into a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.

A new transitional government, formed during lengthy peace talks in neighboring Kenya, is struggling to establish itself in Somalia as it faces internal divisions and opposition from Islamic militants and warlords who benefit from the ongoing anarchy.

"Until we establish our own marine force, we want neighboring countries to deploy their navies to protect Somalia's coastline against the pirates," Mohamed Ali Americo, a senior official in the Somali prime minister's office, said as 20 crew members from two hijacked ships arrived in Kenya following pirate attacks. "We need help from all the nations along the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea."

"The pirates use ransom to buy weapons," he told The Associated Press. "Their operations are also intended to destabilize and discredit the transitional government now that it has relocated to Somalia."

A Hong Kong-based company that owns Feisty Gas, a liquefied petroleum gas tanker that was seized on April 10, paid US$315,000 (euro262,200) to a representative of the Somali hijackers in Mombasa, Kenya, according to a recent U.N. report.

Pirates who seized 48 Asian fishermen and their three vessels on Aug. 15 are still holding them captive near the southern Somali port of Kismayo.

Somali pirates are trained fighters, often dressed in military fatigues, using speedboats equipped with satellite phones and Global Positioning System equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades, according to the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia.

"That is what makes them very dangerous and we are appealing for help," Americo said.

Somalia, which has the longest coast in Africa at 3,025-kilometer (1,880-mile), lies along key shipping lanes linking the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. The United States and NATO have warships in the region to protect vessels in the deeper waters farther from shore, but they are not permitted to operate in Somalia's territorial waters.

"These attacks take place in international waters and we call upon the naval vessels in the region to come to the assistance of the hijacked ships," according to the International Maritime Bureau.

"At the very least, they can prevent the hijackers from taking these ships into Somali waters. Once the vessels have entered these waters the chances of any law enforcement response is negligible."

[hkskyline]

Pirates Seize Ukrainian Ship Off Somalia Coast For Ransom
21 October 2005

KIEV (AP)--Pirates seized a Ukrainian cargo ship off Somalia's coast for ransom, and Ukrainian authorities have initiated negotiations with the hijackers, a Foreign Ministry official said Friday.

Pirates hijacked the vessel, Panagia, on Tuesday with 22 crew members on board about 100 miles off the Somali coast, and demanded a $700,000 ransom.

The ship, owned by a company from Ukraine's southern city of Odessa, was sailing under a Liberian flag and was carrying iron ore from South Africa to Turkey.

The ship is currently anchored just over two miles off Somalia's east coast, ministry spokesman Dmytro Svystkov said.

"We have spoken with the captain of the ship...all the Ukrainian citizens are alive and well," he said. "The crew can move around the ship, but they are under permanent control by the pirates."

Ukraine has ordered its diplomats to ask the authorities of France, the U.K. and U.S., as well as North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials, to "review all the options for freeing the ship and the crew," Svystkov said.

Piracy is rampant near the coast of Somalia, which is torn by renewed clashes between militias fighting over control of the troubled African country of 7 million.

[hkskyline]

Search for Greek oil tanker missing in pirate-infested Somalia waters

ATHENS, Oct 21 (AFP) - A search was underway Friday for a Greek oil tanker that has been out of contact since sending out an alert in pirate-infested waters off the coast of Somalia, the Greek merchant marine ministry said.

The Maltese-flagged San Carlos sent out an alert on Thursday, but attempts to contact the ship with its Greek captain and 24 sailors of various nationalities have failed.

"There is a problem, but we can't confirm for the moment if it was an act of piracy, because that type of signal is sent in case of a conflict on board or other problems," a ministry official told AFP.

Signals from the ship indicate it is some 84 nautical miles off the Somali coast, at a location still on its planned course, said the official on condition of anonymity.

Maltese and Somalian authorities began searching for the vessel after the distress call on Thursday, the official said.

Another Maltese-flagged vessel, the MV Pagania, was seized by gunmen on Wednesday off Somalia's coast who have demanded a 700,000-dollar (583,000-euro) ransom for its release.

Piracy has become epidemic in the unpatrolled waters off the coast of Somalia, where at least 23 hijackings and attempted seizures have been recorded since mid-March, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

Somalia has had no functioning central administration for the past 14 years and last week the prime minister of the country's fledgling and largely powerless transitional government appealed for help from neighboring countries to patrol its waters.

[hkskyline]

Nigerian navy plans more bases in Niger Delta to check oil smuggling, sea piracy
22 October 2005

Text of report by Kelvin Ebiri entitled "Navy plans more bases in Niger Delta "published by Nigerian newspaper The Guardian website on 22 October

To check illegal oil bunkering and sea piracy in the Niger Delta, the Nigerian Navy plans to establish two additional operational bases in the area, the Chief of Navy Staff Vice-Admiral Ganiyu Adekeye said yesterday.

The new bases would be sited in Bonny in Rivers State and Egwuama in Bayelsa State. to protect the nation's oil facilities and the creeks as well as the waterways. Vice-Admiral Adekeye stated this during a meeting he held with officers and men of the NNS Pathfinder during a two day familiarization tour of Naval ships, establishment and units in Rivers State yesterday.

He explained that it was the responsibility of the navy to protect the nation's interest in the deep sea, coastal, shore and other economic zones within the territorial waterways. This was why government provided the navy with new patrol boats and fighting ships, to boost it operations in the region.

Unveiling his agenda for the navy, Adekeye said his efforts would be geared on the implementation of six cardinal programmes: operation, training, logistics, welfare, relationship with other members of the armed forces, loyalty and discipline,

He demanded all hands to be on deck and to exhibit a high degree of commitment, and embrace the challenges in the reform.

He urged the officers not to allow other arm of the armed forces to take over their responsibility.

Adekeye also called for discipline, loyalty and hard work, which he described as the bedrock of the navy. adding that officers who did not possess these virtues had no place in the navy.

Similarly, the Rivers State governor, Peter Odili, said the state would continue to cooperate with the navy to ensure the safety of the nation's shores and waterways, for investors and others doing business offshore.

Odili gave the assurance when the naval chief visited him at the government house, Port Harcourt.

Source: The Guardian website, Lagos, in English 22 Oct 05

[hkskyline]

IMB calls for help as pirates strike again off Somalia
25 October 2005
Lloyd's List

THREE ships have been seized by pirates off the Somali coast in recent days as hijackers extended their attacks to vessels way out at sea, writes Janet Porter.

The International Maritime Bureau is now calling for a naval patrol off the southern Somali coast to intercept hijacked ships before they reach Somali waters.

“There is little else that can be done in such a lawless country,” said Captain Pottengal Mukundan, director of the bureau.

His plea for more navy ships followed reports that a Maltese-flagged tanker carrying gas oil from Bahrain to South Africa had been attacked some 100 miles off the Somali capital Mogadishu last week.

The Malta Maritime Authority is investigating a distress signal sent by the 30,514 dwt San Carlos.

A bulk carrier, believed to be the Liberian-flagged Panagia, is also thought to have been seized.

These two latest incidents follow the hijacking of a ship carrying aid as part of the UN World Food Programme. The Torgelow went to the help of a sistership, the Semlow, that had been seized by pirates. Although that ship has since been released, apparently after its cargo had been discharged, the Torgelow has not been heard from.

What is alarming authorities, such as the IMB, is the fact that ships are being attacked 90 or 100 miles out at sea where they would usually expect to be safe from raiders.

The hijackers are using quite small but fast boats to reach their targets, and then are forcing them into Somali territorial waters. There is already a naval patrol off the northern coast of Somalia to protect merchant shipping, and now the IMB is hoping that vessels sailing further south can be guarded as well.

Since March, there have been 23 attacks off the southern and eastern coast of Somalia, the IMB said. Once seized, the hijackers typically demand a ransom for the safe return of the vessel and crew.

The Semlow was held for over 14 weeks before being freed. The Torgelow was attacked by the same gang.

The pirates appear to have the protection and support of local warlords and see these hijackings as a lucrative source of revenue with minimal risk to themselves.

“This is a region with a high number of coalition naval vessels that could play an important role in responding to these crimes,” the bureau said.

Usually, the attackers approach in one or two fast boats, and fire on the ship with automatic weapons and sometimes rocket-propelled grenades

They will aim at the bridge windows and force the captain to slow down or stop.

[hkskyline]

Piracy risk is more than just the Malacca Strait
Wider Indonesian waters pose even greater threat to world’s shipping, says MIG model, writes Thomas Turner
1 November 2005
Lloyd's List

INDONESIAN waters are the highest risk area in the world for marine piracy, according to MIG’s new Piracy Threat Assessment model.

Whereas the majority of analysis on piracy risks tends to highlight threats in the Malacca Strait, MIG’s analysis reveals that the remainder of Indonesian sovereign territory presents a significantly higher overall risk to shipping than the Strait itself.

MIG’s proprietary risk model uses an optimised statistical approach to the assess piracy threats in 13 key zones around the world.

The model analyses the patterns in recorded pirate attacks including their time of day, location, method of attack, class of ship attacked and damages sustained, to produce an informed and up-to-date picture of the risks posed to vessels.

The model predicts that no less than 70 attacks to ships at anchor or underway will take place in Indonesian territory, outside of the Malacca Strait, over the next 12 months.

This compares to fewer than 30 within the Malacca Strait. It also makes Indonesia far and away the highest risk region, with East African waters — in particular Somalia — next in line.

These numbers deserve further analysis. Of course, Indonesian waters cover a substantially larger area than does the strait (an arguable explanation for the higher predicted incident rate), but more relevant than the size of the zone is the volume of shipping passing through it.

As one of the busiest choke points in the world, the Malacca Strait would be expected to have the higher rating, but this is not so.

The answer, in fact, lies to a large extent in the frequency with which ships are being attacked while at anchor in Indonesian waters.

Indeed, nearly 50 of the predicted 70 attacks over the next 12 months are expected to occur while alongside.

The risk is particularly severe in Balikpapan and Jakarta anchorages, which this year have between them accounted for around half of reported acts of piracy while at anchor in the country.

High rates of attack in Balikpapan, on Kalimantan’s east coast, should come as no great surprise.

The level of lawlessness in the region is extremely high and organised crime prevails.

People smuggling and document fraud are also commonplace. The involvement of local officials in these practices adds to the problem.

Indeed, an article was published earlier this month in the Indonesian daily Kompas describing how it has now become “traditional” for militants and criminals to move between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines via the East Kalimantan coast to Sabah and Mindanao.

The article describes the security in the region as “lax” and goes as far as to call the East Kalimantan coast and interior a “no man’s land”.

The existence of such a trafficking route also goes some way to explaining the heightened frequency of piracy attack in the Sulawesi Sea.

In Jakarta too, while the level of law enforcement is higher, organised and petty crime remains a problem — marine piracy being just one aspect of this.

Elsewhere, attacks at ports have been reported in recent months in Surabaya, East Java; Makassar, South Sulawesi; Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan and Belawan, Malacca Strait.

At sea, MIG currently sees the highest risks in Indonesian waters concentrated in the Malacca Strait, the Sulawesi Sea (in particular, in waters surrounding the Sulu Archipelago, as discussed above) and the Makassar Strait.

A number of attacks have occurred in these areas in recent months involving armed attack, hostage-taking and hijacking.

MIG’s Piracy Threat Assessment is a new tool designed to assist its clients in the marine and insurance industries in understanding the risks posed to their shipping/marine operations.

It is one of a variety of bespoke services that MIG provides to facilitate the identification, understanding and minimisation of risk exposure across a number of industries world-wide.

Thomas Turner is an analyst at the Merchant International Group, which specialises in strategic research and corporate intelligence.

[hkskyline]

Pirates May Have Also Attacked U.N. Ship
By RODRIQUE NGOWI
6 November 2005

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - The pirates who attacked a luxury cruise liner off Somalia's coast were likely to have been from the same group that hijacked a U.N.-chartered vessel in June and held its crew and food aid hostage for 100 days, a maritime official said Sunday.

Two boats full of pirates approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the Somali coast Saturday and fired rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles while the heavily armed bandits tried to get onboard.

The ship escaped by shifting to high speed and changing course. Its passengers, mostly Americans with some Australians and Europeans, were gathered in a lounge for safety, and nobody was injured, said Bruce Good, spokesman for the Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.

Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program, said the location of the attack would indicate the pirates were probably from a group that seized a U.N.-chartered ship on a humanitarian mission on June 27.

That group -- led by Mohamed Abdi Hassan and a warlord nicknamed Dhagweyne -- is one of three well-organized bands operating along Somalia's 1,880-mile coastline, the longest in Africa. Several other bands are in the country, Mwangura and U.N. officials said.

Mwangura said the attack on the luxury cruise liner shows that pirates from anarchic Somalia are becoming bolder and more ambitious in their efforts to hijack ships for ransom and loot.

Somali pirates are trained fighters with maritime knowledge. They identify their targets by listening to the international radio channel used by ships at sea, Mwangura said.

"Sometimes they trick the mariners by pretending that they have a problem and they should come to assist them -- they send bogus distress signals," Mwangura said. "They are getting more powerful, more vicious and bolder day by day."

The Semlow was the first U.N.-chartered ship to be seized while on a humanitarian mission to Somalia and the 10 crew members were held for more than three months while the pirates tried to get the United Nations to pay ransom -- which it refused to do.

The hijackers agreed to let the ship go after it ran out of fuel amid negotiations by clan elders.

Somalia has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The leaders then turned on each other, transforming the nation of 7 million into a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.

Somalia lies along key shipping lanes linking the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean and there has been a sharp rise in piracy this year along its coastline, with 25 attacks reported since March 15, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a division of the International Chamber of Commerce that tracks trends in piracy. In 2004, the organization reported just two attacks off the Horn of Africa.

U.S. and NATO warships patrol the region to protect vessels in deeper waters further out, but they are not permitted in Somalia's territorial waters.

Saturday's attackers never got close enough to board the cruise ship, but one member of the 161-person crew was injured by shrapnel, the cruise line said.

"Our suspicion at this time is that the motive was theft," Good said, adding that the crew had been trained for "various scenarios, including people trying to get on the ship that you don't want on the ship."

Passengers awoke to the sound of gunfire as two 25-foot inflatable boats approached the liner, the British news agency Press Association reported.

Mark Rogers, one of the passengers aboard the Seabourn Spirit, described the experience as frightening but said the crew responded very well. "It was absolutely amazing how little panic there was," he told AP Radio.

The Spirit was bound for Mombasa, Kenya, at the end of a 16-day voyage from Alexandria, Egypt. It was expected to reach the Seychelles on Monday, then continue on its previous schedule to Singapore, company officials said.

The 440-foot-long, 10,000-ton cruise ship, which is registered in the Bahamas, sustained minor damage, Good said. The liner, which had its maiden voyage in 1989, can accommodate 208 guests.


Associated Press reporter Jennifer Kay in Miami contributed to this report.

[hkskyline]

Couple recounts pirate attack on Miami company's cruise ship
6 November 2005

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) - A California couple aboard a luxury cruise liner targeted by armed pirates off the east African coast recounted the terrifying moments as the bandits tried to board the ship in an e-mail to friends and family.

Two boats full of pirates, armed with grenade launchers and machine guns, approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the Somali coast Saturday and opened fire while the bandits tried to get onboard, according to the Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.

But the captain "swerved the ship sharply to the left trying unsuccessfully to ram the oncoming boat and then took off at full speed," Harry and Jan Hufford, of Oakmont, Calif., said in the e-mail obtained by The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa.

The couple, both retired southern California government officials, wrote home shortly after the attack to assure loved ones that they were OK. None of the 151 passengers abroad the ship were injured, but one member of the 161-person crew was injured by shrapnel, cruise officials said.

According to the Huffords, the captain told passengers over the public address system around 5:30 a.m. "that a boat with armed men was coming along the starboard side and we were to lock ourselves in our cabins."

The captain later instructed passengers to gather in the ship's restaurant, and as the Huffords were leaving their cabin, they heard a heavy thud, the e-mail said. A rocket had hit a cabin nearby, "but it jammed in the metal balcony door frame and shattered the glass but fortunately exploded downward," it said.

"There are bullet holes at several locations and two of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the lounge at the rear of the ship were shattered by bullets," the Huffords wrote.

The Spirit, which sustained minor damage, was bound for Mombasa, Kenya, at the end of a 16-day voyage from Alexandria, Egypt. It was expected to reach the Seychelles on Monday, and then continue on its previous schedule to Singapore, company officials said.

[hkskyline]

Liner 'too close' to pirate waters
Greg Roberts
8 November 2005
The Australian

THE luxury liner with 22 Australians on board that was attacked by pirates off the Somali coast was cruising much closer to shore than the distance recommended to avoid pirates.

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer suggested terrorists were involved in the weekend attack on the Seabourn Spirit, but it bore the hallmarks of recent attacks by pirates off Somalia.

A crewman was injured on Saturday when the $1000-a-night vessel was attacked about 160km off the Somali coast, with men in two inflatable boats firing heavy machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades at it.

A visit by Australian officials yesterday to the vessel as it was anchored offshore from the Seychelles capital of Mahe confirmed that 19 Australian passengers and three Australian crew were safe.

Seychelles-based American military personnel inspected damage to the vessel, which was carrying 151 passengers and 161 crew, and retrieved ordnance.

Mr Downer said yesterday the fact that the attackers were so well armed indicated it was "quite possible" they were terrorists whose intent was to kill people rather than rob the vessel.

Mr Downer said that because the Bahamas-registered vessel was based in Miami, "there was presumably a supposition that it was an American ship, and certainly there were a lot of Americans on board".

However, 25 piracy incidents have been reported off the Somali coast over the past seven months, including recent attacks involving weaponry and inflatable boats similar to those used at the weekend.

The International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre issued an alert last week warning that "heavily armed pirates are now attacking ships further away" from the Somali coast; one vessel was attacked 200km offshore.

The centre recommended that vessels stay "as far away as possible" from the coast, with 280km considered a reasonable distance.

An Australian spokesman for the vessel, John Richardson, of Carnival Australia, which includes P&O Cruises, said the Seabourn Spirit was aware of the warnings and as a result was travelling east, instead of west, of Socrota Island.

"The ship was presumed to be far enough from the coast," Mr Richardson said.

Security on liners would be reviewed, he added.

Australian Maritime Union secretary Paddy Crumlin said Mr Downer had attempted to implicate terrorists for political reasons.

"The real issue is a badly regulated international industry based on flags-of-convenience ships where nobody is accountable for setting standards," Mr Crumlin said.

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Maritime union seeks action to protect ships from pirates off Somalia
6 November 2005

LONDON (AP) - A British maritime union called on Sunday for extra protection for ships traveling off the coast of Somalia in the face of an upsurge of piracy in the region.

Two boats full of heavily armed pirates attacked a luxury cruise liner about 100 miles (160 kilometers) off the Somali coast Saturday and tried to get onboard.

Andrew Linnington of the National Union of Marine Aviation and Shipping Transport, which represents merchant navy officers, said the union, known as NUMAST, was holding urgent talks with ship owners this week to discuss the problem of piracy off Somalia's coast, a situation he said was close to being out of control.

Linnington said there had been 23 reported attacks off the Somalian coast since March, including attacks on two United Nations ships carrying relief supplies.

"We believe there should be a naval task force, particularly off Somalia, to try and stop the attacks. In the last 10 years hundreds of seamen have been killed and thousands injured in pirate attacks across the world," Linnington said.

"It's got to the stage where it's anarchy on the sea waves and this latest incident shows it's time governments got their acts together."

The cruise ship -- the Seabourn Spirit -- escaped on Saturday by shifting to high speed and changing course. None of its passengers -- Americans, Australians and Europeans -- were injured.

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Sonic blasts used against pirates
Greg Roberts
9 November 2005
The Australian

PIRATES attacking a luxury liner with 22 Australians on board off the Somali coast may have aborted their assault after being hit by a sonic blast so powerful it can burst eardrums.

Crew on board the Seabourn Spirit directed the long-range acoustic device at two boatloads of pirates as they fired rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns at the vessel about 160km off Somalia on Saturday.

Australian passenger Bob Meagher has claimed in media interviews in the Seychelles, where the liner was diverted, that a security guard was wounded in the head by shrapnel while operating the device.

The guard was the sole casualty among the 151 passengers and 161 crew aboard the vessel, which was cruising between Alexandria in Egypt and Mombasa in Kenya. He was not seriously injured.

An Australian spokesman for the vessel, John Richardson of Carnival Australia, which includes P&O Cruises, confirmed that the dish-shaped device was targeted at the attackers.

Mr Richardson said the device had been fitted to other liners in the Carnival group. "We are keen to assure passengers that we have effective security measures in place."

Carnival is investigating whether the device was effective in deterring the attackers from pursuing the Seabourn Spirit as it changed course, shifted into high speed and headed further out to sea. The device was developed by the US military as a deterrent to small boats after the terrorist attack on the USS Cole off Yemen in 2000.

It is attached to the rear of a vessel and directs a sonic beam at the target, who hears a high-pitched, ear-splitting sound as loud as 150 decibels.

The operator hears nothing.

The effect can be to confuse the target, who may think he is under heavy fire. Burst ear drums can result at distances of up to 100m.

A version of the device, referred to by the US military as a "non-lethal weapon", has been used for crowd control by US forces in Iraq and by Israeli troops against Palestinian protesters.

The Australian reported yesterday that the Seabourn Spirit was cruising much closer to the Somali coast than the distance recommended by the International Maritime Bureau to avoid pirates.

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Stowaways quizzed as dead taken off ship
Amanda Banks
9 November 2005
The Australian

PAINFULLY thin and unable to walk without support, two stowaways who survived more than three weeks in a locked cargo hold where their two companions died were taken from a Moroccan ship when it docked yesterday.

The stowaways, aged 22 and 32, are suspected of sneaking into the airtight hold of the Furness Karumba during foggy and overcast conditions when the bulk fertiliser carrier was loaded with rock phosphate at the Moroccan port of Laayoure on October 7.

Yesterday, the two survivors -- discovered on November 3 by crew checking for damage after rough weather -- were escorted to Fremantle Hospital by Immigration officers for physical and mental health examinations.

The cause of their companions' deaths -- suspected to be starvation, dehydration or suffocation -- is being investigated by police and the West Australian coroner's office.

The Furness Karumba docked at the industrial port of Kwinana, about 20km south of Perth, at 4.30am yesterday. West Australian police, state Fire and Emergency Services officers and Customs and Immigration Department officials were involved in the operation.

The surviving men were understood to be from Morocco and Mauritania, but the age, nationality and identity of the two dead stowaways was not known.

Detective Sergeant Trevor Troy, of Rockingham police, said a medical officer had been on board the ship and the captain had understood not to give the men solid food, instead providing them with soft food and water as the boat steamed to Perth.

Detective Troy said a log had been kept by the ship's crew and a stowaway plan had been put into action. "Everything has been followed by the book, as we can see it," he said.

The identities of the bulk carrier's 21 crew and captain had been checked by authorities yesterday. "Obviously (the stowaways) were desperate to find somewhere else to live," Detective Troy said.

He said it was not clear whether the four men -- who had met only weeks before their joint bid to escape and knew each other by first name only -- had taken supplies of food or water into the cargo hold. It was hoped that documentation would be found in the cargo hold to help identify the dead men.

Detective Troy said it was expected the surviving pair would be admitted to hospital and interviewed before being transferred to immigration detention. It was possible they would also need to be interviewed by police in the effort to identify their companions.

It was not known if the stowaways had been aware they were heading for Australia.

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Experts say cruises vulnerable, but lines defend security plans
By JOHN PAIN
8 November 2005

MIAMI (AP) - It sounds like a scene in a Hollywood blockbuster: Pirates hit a luxury cruise ship with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns off a lawless African country. The cruise crew tries to ram both pirate boats, uses an earsplitting high-tech weapon on the attackers and evades them.

That was the real-life situation the crew and passengers of the Seabourn Spirit found themselves in off Somalia last weekend. With piracy common in some areas and terrorism fears present after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, cruise lines say they train their crews and have security measures to respond effectively to these threats.

But security experts say that despite all the preparations, cruise liners are vulnerable to attacks like this one or the deadly bombing by al-Qaida-linked militants of the USS Cole in Yemen five years ago in which 17 sailors were killed.

"No ship apart from a naval vessel is really prepared to protect against a waterborne assault of the sort against the Cole," said Kim Petersen, president of maritime security consultant SeaSecure and a former cruise line security official. "Even those ships that are best equipped to cope with such a threat, in the case of the Cole, are in a difficult situation."

Cruise industry officials said the Spirit's successful efforts to repel the attackers validate security plans that all ships must have in place under U.S. and international law. They point out that no passenger was injured on the Spirit and just one crew member had minor injuries.

"Cruising is and has been one of the most safe vacations that you can engage in and will remain so," said Michael Crye, president of the International Council of Cruise Lines, an industry lobbying group.

Cruise lines are in constant communication with authorities on land and the U.S. military responded to the attack on the Spirit, he said. The U.S. counterterrorism task force for the Horn of Africa is based in Djibouti, which borders Somalia.

But he said that attacks on cruise ships are rare -- this was the first since Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean in 1985 and killed a wheelchair-bound American Jew.

Cruise lines are reluctant to talk about their specific security plan for fear of compromising safety. Crye said cruise companies are allowed to arm their crews, but he wouldn't say if they did.

Some security consultants say that cruise lines are reluctant to place armed guards onboard fearing that it would tarnish their image with passengers.

Other known defenses on cruise ships include high-pressure fire hoses used to prevent intruders from boarding ships.

That method was also used by the Spirit's crew. Seabourn Cruise Line, the Carnival Corp. subsidiary that operates the ship, also has bought the high-tech sonic weapons, which were developed for the U.S. military after the Cole bombing.

The Long Range Acoustical Device sends earsplitting noise in a concentrated beam. Its maker, American Technology Corp. of San Diego, doesn't know of any cruise lines other than Miami-based Seabourn that have installed them, said A.J. Ballard, the company's director of military operations.

Some security experts have questioned why the Spirit was only about 100 miles (161 kilometers) off the Somali coast when the International Maritime Bureau has for months warned ships to stay at least 150 miles (241 kilometers) away from that coast because of an increase in pirate attacks.

Many cruise lines have tried to avoid the area, but vessels going from the Mediterranean to Asia or Africa must pass through there.

Seabourn spokesman Bruce Good said the line hasn't decided whether to change its routes. But he said the Spirit was on its highest alert while there.

"As far as we're concerned the incident is behind us. We are now in the next phase, getting people where they need to be and continuing with what we do for a living, which as make people happy on board," he said.

Seabourn has said it appeared the attackers were pirates whose motivation was robbery.

But Petersen, the security consultant, doubted that was the case. Pirates, he said, would have tried to disable the ship's steering and propulsion if they were trying to board. Witnesses, however, said the attackers shot grenades at the passengers.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Monday that the attackers might have been terrorists.

Either way, cruise lines fear that their image as safe havens of fun could be tarnished. After the Achille Lauro hijacking, the eastern Mediterranean cruise market had a sharp decline in traffic. The Sept. 11 attacks forced cruise companies to offer heavy discounts to lure leery passengers onto ships, and ticket prices are only now getting back to pre-attack levels as the industry is having a year of record profits and traffic.

Because no one was killed in the Spirit attack, travelers probably won't be spooked, said Jeff Sharlach, chairman and CEO of The Jeffrey Group, a public relations firm that runs crisis management teams for companies like FedEx Corp.

"You want to avoid making it into a bigger news story than it is naturally. Sometimes if you respond too aggressively, you make it more frightening than it is," said Sharlach, whose company doesn't work with cruise lines.

------

On the Net:

International Council of Cruise Lines: http://www.iccl.org
Carnival Corp.: http://www.carnivalcorp.com
Seabourn Cruise Line: http://www.seabourn.com

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Pirates step up attacks off coast of Somalia
Five times in past week: Mysterious 'mother ship' spotted
Daniel Wallis
Reuters
12 November 2005

NAIROBI - Somali pirates attacked five ships in the past week in a sharp rise of banditry apparently directed from a mysterious "mother ship" prowling the busy Indian Ocean corridor, shipping experts said yesterday.

Most vessels escaped, but one was commandeered, bringing to seven the number of vessels now being held captive along with their crews by pirates plundering the state's coastline, the International Maritime Bureau said.

"Insecurity off the Somali coast has escalated sharply -- it is very worrying," said Andrew Mwangura, program co-ordinator at the Kenyan Seafarers' Association. He said nine ships, including two Arabian dhows, had been seized.

Mr. Mwangura said five vessels were attacked in the past week alone, including the attempt last Saturday to board the Bahamas-registered Seabourn Spirit, which was carrying 151 Western tourists.

Rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles were fired at the U.S.-owned Spirit by gunmen in two small speedboats, but the ship's captain managed to change course and speed away.

The northern and southern coastline of Somalia, Africa's longest, links trade routes for such key commodities as oil, grains and iron ore from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea down to the Mozambique Channel. Thousands of merchant ships snake past the Somali coast to the Cape of Good Hope every year.

Some of the world's leading shipping bodies called on the UN International Maritime Organization and the UN Security Council to urgently address the issue.

"We think it most important that this clearly growing threat to the safety of ships on the high seas is taken up at the highest diplomatic level," a joint letter to IMO's Secretary-General read.

"The attacks against shipping off Somalia have direct implications for the security of the world's transport supply chain."

At the centre of the wave of recent attacks is a mysterious mother ship that has been spotted three times since late July drifting off the northeast coast of Somalia.

"We understand that this is the vessel that is launching the speedboats that go to attack the victims," Mr. Mwangura said.

"We are still trying to discover the name of this ship, its owner, its nationality and the identity of the crew on board."

The International Maritime Bureau, which said the situation was completely out of control, confirmed a mother ship had been involved in the attacks, which were taking place way out to sea.

The piracy watchdog has warned merchant ships to stay at least 200 nautical miles away from the Somali coast, but says its warnings have gone unheeded.

After two years of relative calm, the watchdog said 32 pirate attacks had been recorded since mid-March, including raids on ships carrying supplies for the UN World Food Program.

Mr. Mwangura said among the ships being held hostage by pirates were vessels registered in Thailand, Taiwan, Malta and Ukraine. More than 100 crew members were being held for ransom.

They include the 26 crew, mostly Thai nationals, of a Thai-flagged ship carrying sugar from Brazil to Yemen, which was hijacked close to the coast north-east of Mogadishu early Monday.

Somalia has been ruled by rival warlords since dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Many of the warlords are believed to run gangs who smuggle drugs, weapons and people by road, sea and air around the region.

Piracy is a lucrative and growing offshoot of this trade.

On Wednesday the Security Council scolded Somalia's squabbling government and urged rival factions to come together to confront the chaos and piracy plaguing the lawless nation.

The council expressed "serious concern" about the recent wave of pirate attacks off the coast, and called on regional powers and international bodies to address the problem urgently.

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The low seas
Piracy has returned to menace the world's shipping
12 November 2005
The Times

The decision by Lloyd's of London to treat the threat of piracy as a war risk, rather than part of a ship's hull insurance, underlines the extent and the costs of this ancient scourge, which has returned to the high seas. Piracy, which flourished for centuries along the North African coast and in the Caribbean, is once again taking a heavy toll. Last week a cruise liner, sailing past the Horn of Africa, was attacked by pirates in speedboats armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. The crew took evasive action, using an acoustic bang to simulate gunfire. But one of the rockets penetrated the ship and the lives of 300 passengers were put in danger.

The attack, far out in international waters, was one of about 25 hijackings and attempted seizures since March by pirates operating from Somalia. Two ships carrying United Nations food aid have been attacked, as well as oil tankers and small cargo vessels. The pirates, formidably armed with rockets and missiles, usually force ships back to the coast, ransom or kill the crew and sell the cargo on the black market. Often allied to Somali warlords and safe from international pursuit, these seaborne terrorists have grown ever bolder. The long Somali coastline is now one of the most dangerous for international shipping.

Stamping out piracy is proving almost as difficult nowadays as it was when Blackbeard terrorised the American colonies. In the 18th century, it took the Royal Navy years to hunt him down and break the power of other pirate marauders.

Western navies are legally entitled to take action against pirates in international waters.But most attacks now occur off the coasts of countries unwilling or unable to do anything. The Straits of Malacca, through which a third of the world's shipping passes, have long been the most dangerous spot. But attacks have also been increasing off Nigeria, between Borneo and Malaysia, in the seas around Bangladesh and, ominously, in the Gulf close to Iraq.

The total number of attacks fell last year, largely because the Indonesian Navy has, at last, begun to tackle the Malacca pirates and because many tankers are now taking on armed security guards. But in the first nine months of this year about 141 ships were attacked and boarded, 15 were fired on and 11 hijacked. Of the 259 crew members taken hostage, 12 are still missing, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

The move by Lloyd's to recategorise piracy as a war risk is realistic: not only will it deter shipping from taking risks in high piracy zones, but it also underlines the menace of seaborne terrorism. Since 9/11, Western security services -as well as ports such as Singapore -have been deeply worried by the threat of a hijacked tanker being used as a massive floating bomb. Better protection, such as global positioning systems, an electronic "fence" to prevent boarding and high-pressure hoses, are essential. More importantly, the main shipping nations should pool resources to identify and track down pirate gangs. The world's navies must make the high seas safe again.

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Horror on the High Seas
Modern-day pirates brazenly attack a cruise ship.
What happens if they join forces with terrorists?

http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/2005/1101051121_400.jpg

Simon Robinson with Xan Rice/MombasaSimon Elegant/Kuala Lumpur; Sally B. Donnelly/Washington
21 November 2005
Time

http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2005/0511/wpirates1113.jpg

The first hint of morning light was creeping across the Indian Ocean as the 10,000-ton Miami-based cruise ship Seabourn Spirit motored south along the Somali coast just over a week ago. Most of the 312 people aboard--151 passengers and 161 crew members--were asleep; the boat was expected in Mombasa, Kenya, that afternoon. Then, out of the gloom, came a burst of gunfire. Passengers later said they saw inflatable rubber boats speeding toward the Spirit, each carrying four or five men dressed in black and armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. As the pirates drew closer, they began unloading their weapons onto the 439-ft.-long, seven-deck cruise ship. Passengers scrambled to a central lounge for safety as two grenades slammed into the Spirit, where at least one of them exploded. Just as the pirates tried to board, the Spirit's captain managed to shift into overdrive and head farther out to sea. Frustrated, the bandits turned back toward the coast.

The Spirit's harrowing escape may sound like a scene from a Johnny Depp movie, but the danger posed by the new generation of pirates is all too real. The International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center estimates that in Somali waters alone, attacks have risen from 2 in 2004 to 32 so far this year. Worldwide, piracy incidents could top 300 in 2005. Although attacks on cruise ships like the Spirit are unusual, piracy is one of the world's most stubborn criminal plagues: in waterways around the world, armed gangs wreak havoc with trade routes, interfering with the delivery of relief supplies, holding crews for ransom and stealing tens of millions of dollars in goods every year. Asia remains the most notorious region for piracy, but the waters off the coast of Somalia are fast catching up. Scores of vessels like the Spirit pass along the East African coast every day en route from the Suez Canal and Red Sea to ports in Kenya, Tanzania and countries farther south. The attempted hijacking of the Spirit has convinced maritime authorities, who believe some of Somalia's pirates may be operating from a mysterious "mother ship" that has been spotted drifting off the Somali coast, that Somali pirates are becoming more aggressive and skillful--and increasingly hard to stop. Says Noel Choong, director of the Piracy Reporting Center: "The Somalia coast has become a pirates' paradise."

The surge in piracy is worrisome to counterterrorism experts, who fear that terrorist groups might be tempted to collude with pirates- -whose motivations are more mercenary than ideological--to strike maritime targets. In Southeast Asia, where bandits regularly attack ships passing through the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea, Asian security officials fear that a terrorist cell could hire a gang of pirates to help attack an oil tanker or a container ship. Singapore's former Deputy Prime Minister and national security czar Tony Tan said late last year that "the increased frequency of piracy attacks [and] the changing pattern of how the attacks are carried out lead us to fear the worst."

For those seeking to cause mayhem on the high seas, the waters off Somalia are among the world's most alluring. Somalia has lacked an effective central government for 14 years, and the U.S. believes that al-Qaeda--linked militants operate there. Combined Task Force 150, a multinational naval unit, patrols in the nearby Gulf of Aden and the waters around the Horn of Africa, searching for suspected terrorists who may be moving equipment or people by sea or planning a maritime attack. But with its attention focused on stopping terrorists, the U.S. Navy has been hesitant about pursuing pirates who roam the area. Commander Jeff Breslau, a U.S. Navy spokesman in Bahrain, says coalition forces will help ships in distress but "the focus is not on piracy or maritime crime."

The U.S. believes the attack on the Spirit was carried out by pirates trying to loot the ship, rather than terrorists targeting its Western passengers. But the incident shows that pirates and terrorists share a willingness to use deadly force to achieve their aims. And since pirates make more money--the three big gangs of pirates suspected of working Somali waters now demand and often receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom, according to the Piracy Reporting Center's Choong--they are likely to go after bigger game. With their kidnapping revenues, pirates "can afford to buy themselves some pretty nice boats," says Choong, and hence extend the range of their seizures.

Sellathurai Mahalingam knows how brazen Somali pirates have become. Mahalingam is the captain of the MV Semlow, which was attacked in late June as it carried 850 tons of rice from the World Food Program (WFP) that was destined for hungry Somalis. Now back in his home country of Sri Lanka, Mahalingam, 58, related to TIME the saga of his 101-day ordeal as a captive of Somali pirates. It began, he says, with "the flash of 5 to 10 shots. Straightaway I knew it must be pirates." Before he could issue a distress signal, three fiber-glass speedboats with powerful outboard motors pulled alongside the Semlow. The pirates hooked a small metal ladder to the ship and scrambled aboard. "There were 15 to 20 men wearing shorts and T shirts," says Mahalingam. Those who boarded were barefoot but carrying pistols, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The pirates rushed to the bridge, where in halting English they quizzed Mahalingam and his nine-man crew--eight Kenyans and a Tanzanian-- about their religion and told them they were being taken hostage. They told the captain his was the 20th ship they had hijacked this year.

The pirates stole $8,500 from Mahalingam's safe and forced the crew to set a course toward the central Somali town of Ceel Huur, where the Semlow dropped anchor within sight of land. "I told the pirates that we were carrying cargo that belonged to all Somalians," says Mahalingam. "I said, 'This is for your own people. Why are you doing this?'" Three days after the hijacking, the answer became clear. The pirates contacted the Semlow's owner, Inayet Kudrati, 54, director of the Motaku Shipping Agency based in Mombasa, and demanded that he pay a $500,000 ransom for the ship and crew. "I told them I didn't have that kind of money," says Kudrati, speaking to TIME two weeks ago.

In late September, three months into the siege, the bandits hijacked a second vessel, the Egypt-based Ibn Batuta. A few days later, after the pirates took Mahalingam and his chief engineer ashore for a day to visit the pirate bosses, the pirates gathered their weapons, piled into their speedboats and abandoned both the Semlow and the Ibn Batuta. The WFP says it didn't pay any ransom, but Kudrati told TIME that his shipping company handed over $135,000. "In the end we had to give in to them," he says.

That afternoon, says Mahalingam, a small boat flying a white flag approached. Somali negotiators had sent it to escort the Semlow to a Somali port where it could off-load the rice it was still carrying. Mahalingam radioed the Torgelow, a sister ship that was carrying tea and coffee for Somali traders as well as food and oil for the Semlow. But instead of hearing the captain's voice on the radio, Mahalingam heard a familiar Somali accent. The pirates had their next catch.

Officials fear a terrorist cell could hire a gang of pirates to attack an oil tanker or a container ship

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Somali gunmen free Greek oil after a month in captivity

NAIROBI, Nov 19 (AFP) - Somali gunmen have released a Greek oil tanker and its crew, who were hijacked nearly a month ago in the pirate-infested Horn of Africa nation's waters, officials said Saturday.

The pirates seized the Maltese-flagged San Carlos and its 24-member crew on October 20 as it made its way to South Africa. The ship was released Saturday and resumed its course to its destination, said Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers' Association Programme.

"Reports reaching here from Somalia indicate that the Somali gunmen have released the MT San Carlos," Mwangura said.

It was not clear under what circumstances the vessel was released, but Mwangura said compensation must have been paid to secure its freedom.

Earlier this month, a luxury ship narrowly escaped piracy when gunmen opened fire at the vessel which sped off into the high seas, evading would-be hijackers aboard speedboats.

Piracy has become epidemic in the unpatrolled waters off the coast of Somalia, where at least 23 hijackings and attempted seizures have been recorded since mid-March, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

Somalia has had no functioning central administration for the past 14 years and last month the prime minister of the country's fledgling and largely powerless transitional government appealed for help from neighboring countries to patrol its waters.

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Dire new piracy warnings issued for Somali coast after spate of attacks

NAIROBI, Nov 21 (AFP) - The United States and international maritime authorities have boosted already dire piracy warnings for vessels off the coast of lawless Somalia following a huge surge in attempted hijackings.

In a new alert, the US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) said ships in the region should stay at least 200 nautical miles (230 miles, 370 kilometers) from the coast, extending by 150 nautical miles a previously advised no-go zone.

"Due to continuing conditions of armed conflict and lawlessness in Somalia and waters off its coast, mariners are advised to avoid the port of Mogadishu and to remain at least 200 nautical miles distant from the Somali coast," it said.

ONI began broadcasting the alert over open commercial shipping radio channels on Friday following a similar warning issued earlier in the week by the International Maritime Board (IMB).

On Tuesday, the IMB reported that Somali pirates had hijacked or attempted to board at least 32 vessels off the coast since March in increasingly brazen and violent attacks.

The agency also called for international naval vessels in the area to come to the aid of ships threatened in and around Somali waters, echoing appeals made by the country's largely powerless transitional government.

The new warnings followed an attack on a cruise ship -- the first to target a non-merchant vessel -- earlier this month after which the London-based National Union of Marine, Aviation and Shipping Transport Officers called the waters off Somalia to be declared a war zone.

In addition to extending the perimeter of waters to be avoided, the US alert said all ships even remotely in the vicinity of the Somali coast should step up "anti-piracy precautions and maintain a heightened state of vigilance."

It noted that as well as opening fire on vessels to intimidate their crews into stopping, pirates were reported to be using false distress calls to lure ships close to the coast.

"Therefore, caution should be taken when responding to distress calls keeping in mind it may be a tactic to lure a vessel into a trap," it said.

[FM 2258]

Damn, the waters of Somalia seem pretty dangerous.

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US Warns Sailors On Piracy Off Coasts Of Somalia, Yemen
23 November 2005

NAIROBI (AP)--Boats and ships near Somalia and Yemen should travel in convoys and maintain good radio communications at all times because of the threat of pirate attacks, a U.S. travel advisory warned Wednesday.

Sailors should avoid the Somali port of Mogadishu and remain at least 200 nautical miles (230 miles) off the Horn of Africa nation to avoid pirate attacks, armed robberies and kidnappings for ransom, according to a travel advisory released by the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

Pirates have attacked vessels sailing near Yemen and Somalia's 3,000-kilometer (1,880-mile) coastline, Africa's longest. The two countries lie close to important shipping route connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean, where valuable cargo and carriers must pass.

The problem was reported globally after two boatloads of pirates attacked a luxury cruise liner carrying mostly American passengers on Nov. 5. The Seabourn Spirit sped away and no passengers were injured, but one of the 161-person crew was wounded by shrapnel in the raid, which occurred about 100 miles off Somalia.

"Americans considering seaborne travel near the Horn of Africa or in the southern Red Sea should exercise extreme caution," according to the travel advisory. "At least three flagged vessels were hijacked in October 2005 off the coast of Somalia."

Somalia has had no effective government since opposition leaders ousted a dictatorship in 1991 and then turned on each other, carving the nation of 8.2 million into a patchwork of warlord fiefdoms.

The end of both colonial controls and the cold war has reduced naval presence and capability in regions where piracy has historically flourished, leading to escalating incidents of high-sea banditry.

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Somali government signs deal with US firm to battle pirates

NAIROBI, Nov 25 (AFP) - Lawless Somalia's largely powerless transitional government on Friday signed a multi-million-dollar deal with a US maritime security firm to fight rampant piracy in the waters off its unpatrolled coast.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, who has in the past appealed for foreign navies to send gunboats to battle the pirates signed the agreement with the New York-based Topcat Marine Security Inc. at a ceremony in the Kenyan capital.

"This agreement will defend Somalia's territorial waters, defeat the pirates and put an end to the illegal fishing and poaching of our precious natural marine resources," Gedi told reporters.

"With this maritime program in place, we are confident that that Somalia's territorial waters will again be safe for international shipping, legalised fishing to the benefit of the people of Somalia," he said.

Under the terms of the 55-million dollar (47-million euro) first phase of the two-year contract, TopCat will train Somali coast guards and special forces to monitor the anarchic nation's 3,700-kilometer (2,300-mile) coast.

It will also help create five coastal security bases, provide Somali authorities with advanced communications equipment, high-speed patrol boats, ground vehicles and helicopters, officials said.

TopCat security chief Peter Casini said the speedboats to be provided by the firm are some of the fastest in the world and are "the worst nightmare for pirates and those formenting terror will have no place to run or hide."

His company provides training and equipment to maritime and port authorities around the world and has worked with international security services to develop its patrol craft that can respond to terrorist threats and attacks.

Gedi, whose impoverished fledgling government has been hamstrung by internal disputes, said the money for the contract would come from foreign donors but declined to say which countries would provide the funding.

The deal was signed amid a huge surge in violent hijackings and attempted boardings of vessels by increasingly brazen Somali pirates that has sparked dire new maritime warnings for commercial shipping.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has reported 32 such incidents off the Somali coast since mid-March, including the hijackings of two UN food aid vessels and an attack on a US-owned cruise ship.

It has told ships to stay at least 200 nautical miles (230 miles, 370 kilometers) from the coast, a warning repeated last week by the US States Department and Office of Naval Intelligence.

Somalia's coast has been unpatrolled since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre, which plunged the nation into anarchy with no functioning central government.

Gedi's government, created last year in Kenya, is the latest of some one dozen attempts to restore stability to the country, which western intelligence agencies has become a hub for extremists.

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Somali pirates release Kenyan ship, 10 crew

NAIROBI, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Somali pirates have released a Kenyan-owned freighter hijacked last month after the intervention of local leaders, maritime official said here Wednesday.

The pirates released MV Torgelow, hijacked on October 18 in Harardheere, 300 km south of the Somali capital Mogadishu, its nine Kenyan crew and Sri Lankan captain late Tuesday, said Andrew Mwangura, program coordinator of the Mombasa-based Seafarers' Assistance Program.

"It is believed that Somali merchants may have paid an unknown amount of money as ransom. The crew are in good shape," Mwangura said in a statement issued from Mombasa.

He said the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered Torgelow is now heading to the Somali port of El-Maan, some 35 km north of Mogadishu to unload its 850 tons of cargo.

MV Torgelow was hijacked while on her way to deliver supplies to another ship that had been released by pirates, the MV Semlow, which had reported mechanical problems.

The vessel is the third ship owned by the Mombasa-based Motaku Shipping Agency which has been hijacked by Somali pirates this year.

Three Taiwanese fishing ships, with 48 sailors aboard, are also still held by gunmen who seized them more than three months ago off the southeastern port of Kismayo, about 500 km from Mogadishu, said Mwangura.

He said the crew are expected late Wednesday at the makeshift port of El-Maan where they will be able to contact their families.

"They are expected to call El-Maan port this evening. Plans are under way to link the crew members with their loved ones back home on telephone line as soon as they arrive at the make shift port of El-Maan," said Mwangura.

The Somali coastline has seen an increase of piracy in recent months, affecting both commercial and humanitarian ships sailing near the Horn of Africa nation that has been lacking an effective government for the last 14 years.

Last week, the interim Somali government and a US-based maritime security firm signed a 55-million dollar anti-piracy deal aimed at ending increased piracy along the coastline.

Kenyan marine officials fear the International Maritime Board ( IMB)'s orders for ships to keep off at least 200 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia would increase the cost of imports to the East African nation.

The IMB said at least 32 hijackings and attempted seizures have been recorded off the Somali coastline since mid-March.

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WFP re-opens land route to Somalia after pirates thwart sea deliveries

NAIROBI, Dec 5 (AFP) - The World Food Programme (WFP) said Monday it had re-opened a land route to deliver vital humanitarian aid to lawless Somalia after being forced to cancel martime deliveries by a surge in piracy.

For the first time in four years, a convoy of trucks carrying food supplies to displaced Somalis arrived in the anarchic nation by road from the port of Mombasa in neighboring Kenya on Sunday, the United Nations agency said in a statement.

"This is a great achievement, but sadly it was forced on us by the pirates who have attacked our chartered ships and other vessels this year," said WFP's country representative for Somalia, Zlatan Milisic.

Fourteen trucks carrying 500 tonnes of food arrived in Wajid town in Bakol region on Sunday after an arduous 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) drive from Mombasa and through 25 militia checkpoints in Somalia, WFP said.

The WFP cancelled maritime deliveries of much-needed assistance to Somalia after two chartered vessels carrying food aid were hijacked by Somali gunmen in June and August amid a surge in attacks by pirates.

"It is 25- to 30-percent cheaper to bring our food aid in by sea and boats can carry much more, but we have had to resort to this land route because shipowners feel it is too risky to sail to the south," Milisic said.

Last month, WFP said rising piracy had choked deliveries of aid, putting at great risk more than half a million people facing acute food shortages in the country's southern regions.

Sunday's delivery marked the first time WFP has moved food aid overland since February 2001 and comes as the humanitarian situation in southern Somalia is deteriorating due to drought and insecurity, it said.

"It couldn't happen at a worse time," Milisic said. "If the current rains in the south fail and there are severe food shortages, WFP must rapidly increase deliveries to the south, and that will be very difficult."

Of about a million Somalis in need of food, about 640,000 are found in the southern region, which is beset by high morbidity and malnutrition rates, chronic food insecurity, crop failure, insecurity and flooding.

Somalia, a nation of up to 10 million people, has been without a functioning government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre plunged the Horn of Africa country into anarchy and violence.

Pirates taking advantage of the unpatrolled coast, have attacked 32 vessels in and around Somali waters since mid-March, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

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New ship feared hijacked in pirate-infested Somali waters

NAIROBI, Dec 6 (AFP) - An unidentified merchant vessel has been reported hijacked by gunmen in the pirate-infested waters off Somalia in what is feared to be the latest in a surge of attacks on commericial shipping there, a maritime official said Tuesday.

If confirmed, the hijacking would bring to at least five the number of ships in the same area currently in the hands of pirates and would be the 33rd attack on ships in and around Somali waters since mid-March.

Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme (SAP) said his organization had been informed that a ship of unknown ownership and registry was seized early Tuesday.

"We were called by traders who frequent the Mogadishu-Mombasa route and informed that a new merchant ship has been hijacked off northeastern Somalia," Mwangura told AFP from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa.

He said the reports indicated the vessel was taken near the Somali town of Haradere, the base of pirates blamed for the spate of attacks that have prompted dire warnings to avoid the coast and calls for foreign intervention.

Until Tuesday, the International Maritime Board (IMB) had recorded 32 such incidents in the area since March 15, including a November 5 attack on a US-owned luxury ocean liner and two UN-chartered freighters carrying food aid.

In the past two weeks, Somali pirates have freed a hijacked Kenyan-owned cargo ship, the MV Torgelow, and its 10-man crew and Ukrainian vessel, the MV Panagia, and its crew of 22, both of which were seized in October.

Before Tuesday's reported incident, Somali pirates continued to hold at least four hijacked vessels, including the Thai-owned MV Laemthong Glory, and its unknown number of crew and three Taiwanese fishing boats with 48 sailors.

The spate of attacks has prompted dire warnings for mariners to stay away at least 200 nautical miles (230 miles, 370 kilometers) from the coast and sparked calls for Somalia's unpatrolled waters to be declared a war zone.

Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to ply the 3,700 kilometer (2,300 mile) coast.

The country's fledgling and largely powerless transitional government, which in October appealed for foreign navies to intervene, last month signed a deal with a US maritime security firm to help fight the pirates.

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Fifty attacks predicted off east Africa over next year
MIG sees Somalian waters as high-risk area, writes Thomas Turner
6 December 2005
Lloyd's List

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has been repeatedly hitting the headlines over the past month following an attempted attack on the Seabourn Spirit , a luxury cruiseship some 100 miles out to sea.

But while an attack on a luxury passenger vessel represents a shift in target for the pirates — and certainly grabs public attention — the lack of security in Somalian waters has been a problem for some time. Indeed, repeated attacks by pirates on merchant vessels throughout the year have led MIG to steadily increase its risk rating for the waters.

The MIG Marine Piracy Assessment now predicts around 50 attacks taking place along the East African coastline in the next 12 months.

In the month leading up to the November 5 attacks, no less than five incidents of piracy were recorded by the International Maritime Bureau in Somalian waters. These included the hijacking of a UN food aid cargoship, a bulk carrier and a product tanker. And in the days following, two further incidents were reported: the hijacking of a general cargo ship and an armed attack on a ro-ro that left the bridge windows riddled with bullet holes.

The large distances from the Somali coastline at which many of these attacks have been reported have led to concerns that pirates may be launching operations from an offshore “mother ship”. The small, fast, vessels typically used in attacks have a limited range and as such, attacks over a hundred miles off a coastline are unusual.

This putative increase in sophistication and the growing frequency of attack has brought mounting calls for an increase in security. Sure enough, on November 25, Top Cat Marine Security announced it had been awarded a $50m contract by the transitional Somali government to provide anti-piracy operations in the waters.

However, it is unclear at this stage exactly what the scope of the New York City-based company’s operations will be, and whether it will be actively hunting down pirates or simply providing security escorts for high-value cargoes.

The former of these possibilities has raised significant concerns about the legality and legitimacy of a private security company actively hunting down criminals, not least due to the US and UN embargoes on arms into Somalia. The latter possibility, however, seems unlikely to provide a significant long-term solution to the problem, dealing as it does with the symptoms rather than the causes of the problem.

But it is the causes of the problem that will prove trickiest to tackle. Somalia is a state in disarray. With a government that was until recently exiled in Nairobi and is now split between Jowhar and Mogadishu, there is little effective government and power is effectively split between warlords. Security and the rule of law are barely existent and progress, through a UN-backed programme, is painfully slow.

An assassination attempt during a visit by Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi to Mogadishu in early November left five people dead and provided a stark illustration of the depth of the problem.

With local warlords believed to be financing and profiting from pirate operations, the problem runs to the heart of Somalia’s governance crisis. Whether a private security firm can enter such an arena and bring about lasting security improvements to the country’s coastline remains to be seen, but it will certainly be a tall order.

MIG’s Piracy Threat Assessment is a new tool designed to assist its clients in the marine and insurance industries in understanding the risks posed to their shipping/marine operations. It is one of a variety of bespoke services that MIG provides to facilitate the identification, understanding and minimisation of risk exposure across a number of industries world-wide.

Thomas Turner is an analyst at The Merchant International Group, specialists in strategic research and corporate intelligence. Contact: +44 (0)20 7259 5060, email: tturner@merchantinternational.com, web: www.merchantinternational.com .

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U.S. to donate old ships to Indonesia to help secure Malacca Strait, official says
7 December 2005
Associated Press Newswires

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - The U.S. Navy plans to donate ships to Indonesia to help it patrol the Malacca Strait, a strategic Southeast Asian waterway seen at risk of terrorist attack, Indonesia's defense minister said Wednesday.

Juwono Sudarsono described the U.S. offer as "still an informal one."

State news agency Antara quoted him as saying on Tuesday that the ships would include Landing Ship Tanks more than 40 years old and inflatable boats.

Landing Ship Tanks, or LSTs, are naval ships especially designed to transport and deploy troops, vehicles, and supplies onto shore. They were first used in World War II.

"I don't know how many ships there will be, but they will be used ones ... which will be used to strengthen security in the Malacca Straits," Sudarsono said.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman declined immediate comment.

More than 50,000 ships, carrying half the world's oil and a third of its commerce, use the Malacca Strait each year.

The waterway, which is bordered by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, is infested by pirates and there are fears that international terrorists might target ships passing through it. The three countries jointly patrol the waterway.

Last month, the United States lifted a six-year long arms embargo on Indonesia as a reward for its cooperation in the war on terror. The ban was originally imposed to protest alleged human rights abuses by Indonesian troops.

Indonesia has since said it will buy Hercules transport aircraft from the United States.

Before the ban, the United States was Indonesia's chief military supplier.

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Thai oil tanker escapes hijack attempt off northeast Somalia

NAIROBI, Dec 7 (AFP) - A Thai-owned tanker believed to have been hijacked in the pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast this week managed to escape its attackers after coming under heavy fire, a maritime official said Wednesday.

The MT Sirichai Petroluem 2, which was delivering fuel to Thai fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean and was reportedly seized on Tuesday, took evasive action and then sped away from the pirates, the official said.

"The ship was ... fired on by gunmen in a speedboat, but it managed to outrun them and sped on," said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme (SAP) that initially reported the incident.

The tanker and its 10-strong crew are safe and continuing with their journey, he told AFP.

Until Tuesday, the International Maritime Board (IMB) had recorded 32 attacks by increasingly brazen pirates on vessels off the unpatrolled coast of laweless north and northeast Somalia since March 15.

Those include a November 5 attack on a US-owned luxury ocean liner and the successful hijackings of two UN-chartered freighters carrying food aid and another Thai-owned ship, the MV Laemthong Glory, that is still being held.

In addition to the Laemthong Glory, Somali pirates are still holding three Taiwanese fishing boats and their combined crews of 48 sailors.

The spate of attacks has prompted dire warnings for mariners to stay away at least 200 nautical miles (230 miles, 370 kilometers) from the coast and sparked calls for Somali waters to be declared a war zone.

Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to ply the 3,700 kilometer (2,300 mile) coast.

The country's fledgling and largely powerless transitional government, which in October appealed for foreign navies to intervene, last month signed a deal with a US maritime security firm to help fight the pirates.

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Territory no longer an issue in Malacca Strait security
12 December 2005
The Jakarta Post

Four Southeast Asian countries -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand -- are expected to soon agree on a standard operating procedure (SOP) in securing the pirate-infested Strait of Malacca, according to a senior official.

Chief of the Indonesian Navy's western fleet Rear Adm. Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno said on Saturday that under the SOP, patrol boats from each country could enter each other's water territory when chasing pirates, but needed to refrain from taking military action or opening fire.

Tedjo said that in the past, cross-border pursuit had been hampered by the territory issue.

"But once the SOP is signed, it will be a different story," he was quoted by state news agency Antara as saying.

The Strait of Malacca, a narrow 805-kilometer waterway is used by some 50,000 ships a year carrying a quarter of global trade and nearly all oil imports for Japan and China. But ships have often been targeted by pirates, and recently there have been fears it could become a target for a terror attack.

The three littoral states of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore launched coordinated sea patrols of the strait last year, but piracy and robbery have remained rampant and they are under pressure from major users such as Japan and the United States to step up security. The three states later invited Thailand, as a close neighbor, to conduct a joint patrol of the strait.

Elsewhere, Tedjo said in addition to the sea patrol, the "Eyes in the Sky" coordinated air patrol by the four countries was recently launched.

Under the program, the personnel or aircraft of each country could also enter each other's territory, but the limit was set at three nautical miles from the coast, he said.

Tedjo also said that governments of user countries, such as the U.S. and Japan, were expected to soon deliver promised assistance, including in the form of equipment and training.

Compared to the past two years, security in the Strait of Malacca, however, seems to be improving.

Pottengal Mukundan, London-based director of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), said there was a dramatic reduction in attacks on ships in the strategic waterway this year, thanks to intensified efforts by Indonesia to boost naval and air patrols.

Mukundan said Indonesia launched large-scale sea and air patrols in July to enforce maritime security in the strait in an operation code-named Gurita 2005.

As a result, there was a sharp drop in attacks to 10 in the first nine months of 2005 from 25 in the same period of 2004.

The figures for the first few months of 2005 were also affected by the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami, which devastated parts of Indonesia and also curtailed pirates' activities.

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Commons to investigate impact of piracy on UK.
12 December 2005
Lloyd's List

UK MPs are to hold an inquiry into the issue of piracy on the high seas, the House of Commons transport committee has announced, writes David Osler.

Although the investigation will necessarily cover international aspects of the problem, there will be some focus on the impact on UK shipping in particular. Indeed, the committee claims that Britain itself is not immune from piracy.

It maintains there have been two piracy incidents in British ports since 1993, both taking place in Goole, East Yorkshire, in July 2002.

In the first case, robbers broke into the master’s cabin while an unnamed ship was berthed, stealing $7,000.

The second incident, almost three weeks later, also saw the theft of cash and crew belongings.

However, the term is being used loosely here, as the robberies did not take place outside territorial waters.

The inquiry, to be chaired by Labour stalwart Gwyneth Dunwoody, will examine the reason for the increase in piracy in recent decades, and how it is affecting British shipping in particular.

Other topics include guidance from national governments and international organisations, and how they are tackling the threat.

There will also be consideration of “geographic areas of special concern”, almost certainly a reference to Somalia.

Word of the inquiry was welcomed across the industry. Pottengal Mukundan of the International Maritime Bureau said: “It is a good thing. It raises the profile of piracy.”

The Chamber of Shipping said it looked forward to working with the committee.

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Safe passage in Asia's key sea lanes
16 December 2005
South China Morning Post

In a series of steps over the past 18 months, coastal states flanking the main shipping straits through Southeast Asia have taken more effective measures to guard against piracy and terrorism. This provides reassurance to China that the US military will not be directly involved in securing a key waterway that carries about three-quarters of Chinese oil imports.

As a result, Beijing appears to be taking a more relaxed attitude towards countries like India and Australia, which have close ties to the United States, taking part in patrols of regional waters with the agreement of Southeast Asian governments. And, for the first time, Beijing has offered to provide aid to regional countries that want to improve their maritime safety and security.

Beijing's main concern is to ensure that its vital energy and trade supply lines through the Malacca and Singapore straits are not disrupted. It wants countries close to the Southeast Asian waterway to provide protection, thus keeping the US at arm's length.

This may include India, which has recently improved its relations with China as well as the US. India has naval and air bases in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, near the western end of the Malacca Strait. The Chinese ambassador to India, Sun Yuxi , reportedly said in October that although Beijing did not favour powers from outside Southeast Asia patrolling regional waters, "as far as India is concerned, we don't have a problem". But Mr Sun added that if the Americans "come and put their battleships there, we might worry about it".

In March last year, amid rising concern about pirate attacks and possible terrorist strikes against shipping in the Malacca and Singapore straits, a senior US military commander caused controversy when he suggested that US special forces or marines in high-speed vessels might be sent in to "conduct effective interdiction".

The warning underlined the strategic importance of the straits to many countries outside Southeast Asia, including the US, Japan and China. It also prompted the three coastal states flanking the straits - Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore - to take measures to tighten security in the waterway and ensure that their sovereign control was not challenged. The shipping lanes run through their national waters for a substantial distance.

In their latest step to keep the straits safe, the armed forces of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and nearby Thailand have agreed to allow their patrol ships to cross into each other's waters to pursue pirates, terrorists or other maritime criminals. The four had earlier agreed to mount co-ordinated warship patrols in their own waters in the straits and, more recently, to launch air patrols along the waterway - which is over 960km long and used by nearly 170 big ships every day, on average.

Australia last week reached an outline agreement with Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to add Australian maritime aircraft to the air patrols, saying that each flight would carry observers from one of the three coastal states. For their part, the US and Japan have offered to provide vessels to Indonesia to beef up its naval patrol capacity.

Ju Chengzhi, the director-general of the Ministry of Transport, has said Beijing supported the efforts, and the dominant role of the coastal states, in safeguarding sovereignty and security in the straits. "However," he added, "we have also been aware that the littoral states are facing increasing challenges from the continuing growth of maritime traffic in the straits and that their resources are being strained." Michael Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. This is a personal comment

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Ghost Guard brought in to spook pirates
19 December 2005
Lloyd's List

UNMANNED robotic vessels could play a crucial role in the fight against piracy, a manufacturer has claimed, writes David Osler.

A new unit of this type, produced by Florida-based Marine Robotic Vessels International, is able to mount patrols along pre-programmed routes, under the supervision of a human controller ashore.

The product, known as Ghost Guard, will also be able to escort ships through dangerous waters.

Video and other equipment will allow the supervisor to check out nearby vessels.

Keith Henderson of MRV told the BBC that Ghost Guard could use a loudspeaker and microphone to address the crew of suspicious craft.

Where the suspicions prove justified, naval patrol boats could then be alerted.

“If the vessel gets lost or damaged or sunk, then there’s no loss of life,” Mr Henderson added.

Because robot craft are essentially dispensable, they will also be able to tackle such other maritime menaces as people smuggling.

“If the navy has to stop, the robotic vessel can continue the chase right back to its harbour,” says Mr Henderson.

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U.S. Navy Seizes Pirate Ship Off Somalia
By JIM KRANE
22 January 2006

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The U.S. Navy boarded an apparent pirate ship in the Indian Ocean and detained 26 men for questioning, the Navy said Sunday. The 16 Indians and 10 Somali men were aboard a traditional dhow that was chased and seized Saturday by the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, said Lt. Leslie Hull-Ryde of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.

The dhow stopped fleeing after the Churchill twice fired warning shots during the chase, which ended 54 miles off the coast of Somalia, the Navy said. U.S. sailors boarded the dhow and seized a cache of small arms.

The dhow's crew and passengers were being questioned Sunday aboard the Churchill to determine which were pirates and which were legitimate crew members, Hull-Ryde said.

Sailors aboard the dhow told Navy investigators that pirates hijacked the vessel six days ago near Mogadishu and thereafter used it to stage pirate attacks on merchant ships.

The Churchill is part of a multinational task force patrolling the western Indian Ocean and Horn of Africa region to thwart terrorist activity and other lawlessness during the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The Navy said it captured the dhow in response to a report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur on Friday that said pirates had fired on the MV Delta Ranger, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier that was passing some 200 miles off the central eastern coast of Somalia.

Hull-Ryde said the Navy was still investigating the incident and would discuss with international authorities what to do with the detained men.

"The disposition of people and vessels involved in acts of piracy on the high seas are based on a variety of factors, including the offense, the flags of the vessels, the nationalities of the crew, and others," Hull-Ryde said in an e-mail.

Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which is torn by renewed clashes between militias fighting over control of the troubled African country. Many shipping companies resort to paying ransoms, saying they have few alternatives.

Last month, Somali militiamen finally relinquished a merchant ship hijacked in October.

In November, Somali pirates freed a Ukrainian ore carrier and its 22 member crew after holding it for 40 days. It was unclear whether a US$700,000 ransom demanded by the pirates had been paid.

One of the boldest recent attacks was on Nov. 5, when two boats full of pirates approached a cruise ship carrying Western tourists, about 100 miles off Somalia and fired rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

The crew used a weapon that directs earsplitting noise at attackers, then sped away.

Somalia has had no effective government since 1991, when warlords ousted a dictatorship and then turned on each other, carving the nation of 8.2 million into a patchwork of fiefdoms.

[Frank J. Sprague]

Hull-Ryde said the Navy was still investigating the incident and would discuss with international authorities what to do with the detained men.

"The disposition of people and vessels involved in acts of piracy on the high seas are based on a variety of factors, including the offense, the flags of the vessels, the nationalities of the crew, and others," Hull-Ryde said in an e-mail.


Pirates are considered hostis humanis generis and may be tried by any nation and dealt with as that nation sees fit.

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Undaunted Somali pirates hijack new vessel after US seizure

NAIROBI, Jan 25, 2006 (AFP) - Pirates have hijacked yet another merchant ship off the coast of lawless Somalia despite the US Navy's seizure there last week of a suspected pirate vessel, maritime officials said Wednesday.

In a sign that a year-old spate of brazen piracy in Somali waters may be far from over, boat-borne gunmen attacked the ship on Sunday, just a day after a US naval destroyer tracked down and seized their alleged colleagues, they said.

"Pirates armed with guns hijacked a general cargo ship underway," the International Maritime Board (IMB) said in the latest edition of its weekly piracy reports.

"They fired warning shots and threatened the 20 crew members," it said. "They are demanding a ransom for the release of the crew and ship."

The report from the Kuala Lumpur-based IMB gave no further details of the incident but maritime officials in east Africa said they understood the ship carried the flag of the United Arab Emirates.

Sunday's incident was the 38th reported attack on commercial shipping off the unpatrolled Somali coast since March but the first since the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet ordered action against the pirates.

A day earlier, after getting a tip from the IMB about an attempted hijacking and shadowing the suspect vessel overnight, the USS Winston Churchill fired warning shots at and intercepted a dhow carrying a band of suspected pirates about 55 miles (85 kilometers) off Somalia's central eastern coast.

On boarding the ship, US sailors discovered a number of small weapons believed to have been used in pirate attacks and took 26 people -- 16 Indians and 10 Somalis -- into custody for questioning.

According to the IMB, which said it was briefed on the US operation, some of the men said their ship had itself been hijacked by pirates who were using it to stage attacks on merchant vessels in the region.

Although US Navy ships have intervened in hijacking incidents in the area in the past, including firing warning shots at pirate ships, Saturday's was the first in which they seized a suspect vessel or its crew.

Many in the region saw it as an indication the United States was prepared to become more involved in patrolling the waters following appeals from Somalia's largely powerless transitional government last year for international help.

Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to ply the 3,700 kilometer (2,300 mile) coast.

The surge in attacks has prompted dire warnings for mariners to stay at least 200 nautical miles (230 miles, 370 kilometers) from the coast and sparked calls for the area to be declared a war zone.

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Somali pirate demands release of US-captured comrades
By Mohamed Ali Bile

MOGADISHU, Jan 27 (Reuters) - A Somali pirate has demanded the release of "comrades" captured by the U.S. Navy last week, threatening to kill hostages in the future if the call was not heeded, according to media reports on Friday.

Acting on a report of an attempted attack, U.S. Navy sailors pursued and caught a ship near Mogadishu with 10 Somali pirates on board and 16 Indians believed to be hostages.

"The Americans should release the 10 men they are holding," said Garaad Mohamud Mohamed, who told Shabeelle radio he was speaking on behalf of the captured pirates.

"If they don't we will kill any hostages we capture and attack any ships unlawfully plying our waters."

Two Somali ministers dismissed Mohamed's threat saying the latest arrests were part of a government plan to fight piracy along Somalia's long coastline.

"We don't recognise him. He cannot do anything," Information Minister Hayr told Reuters in Nairobi.

"The government is aware of the arrests and is coordinating with the Americans on this matter."

Piracy has become endemic in the unpatrolled waters off the coast of lawless Somalia, where dozens of hijackings and attempted seizures have been reported since mid-March.

The wave of attacks has badly shaken merchant shipping which relies heavily on key international trade routes that snake down Somalia's coastline -- Africa's longest. The attacks have also hampered efforts to get aid to Somalia.

In November, the Somali government signed a two-year deal worth $50 million with a U.S. marine security firm in a bid to end piracy.

Somalia collapsed into anarchy in 1991 when rival warlords overthrew military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Many militias controlled by powerful warlords smuggle drugs, weapons and people by road, sea and air around the region, experts say.

Piracy is a lucrative and increasingly popular offshoot of this illicit trade. (Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Nairobi)

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Three more hijacked Taiwanese fishing boats freed in Somalia

TAIPEI, Jan 30, 2006 (AFP) - Three more Taiwanese fishing boats hijacked off Somalia last year were released with their 62 crew at the weekend, an official here said Monday.

The vessels -- the Cheng Ching Feng, Hsin Lien Feng 36, and Feng Rong 16 -- were among four ships seized by Somali pirates. The Chung Yi 218 had been freed last Thursday.

"The three ships have set sail from Somalia, and the crew are all safe," said Taiwan foreign ministry spokesman Michel Lu.

The four vessels carried a total of 62 crew from Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam. The Feng Rong 16 had been hijacked in November and the other three in August last year.

Somali pirates reportedly had threatened to kill dozens of them unless the shipowners paid ransoms of some 500,000 US dollars per boat. Lu declined to say whether the shipowners had paid any money.

Somalia was plunged into anarchy after strongman Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, and the country disintegrated into a patchwork of fiefdoms run by warlords and clan militia chiefs.

On January 22, pirates hijacked another merchant ship, believed to be registered in the United Arab Emirates, off the Somali coast.

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US turns over Somali pirate suspects to Kenya for prosecution

MOMBASA, Kenya, Jan 30, 2006 (AFP) - The US military has turned over 10 suspected Somali pirates seized in a naval operation off the coast of lawless Somalia this month to Kenyan authorities who interrogated them on Monday and may charge them, officials said.

The suspects, who were captured by the US Navy's Fifth Fleet on January 21 after unsuccessfully attacking a merchant ship the previous day, were flown by US military planes to Kenya's port city of Mombasa on Sunday and questioned by police, they said.

"They are being questioned, we shall charge them in court at the appropriate time," a Mombasa police official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

The official and others said the US Navy had turned over weapons -- rocket launchers and and rifles -- seized from the alleged pirates to assist in their prosecution.

Initially, they could face kidnapping and weapons charges, the officials said.

The gunmen were aboard an Indian dhow when they were captured by the USS Winston Churchill, a guided missile destroyer, that intercepted them about 55 miles (85 kilometers) off Somalia's central eastern coast and fired warning shots after they attempted to hijack a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier, MV Delta Ranger.

The 16-member crew of the dhow said the pirates had hijacked their vessel and were using it as a "mother ship" from which to attack ships in smaller speedboats.

"They mistreated us," said Akbar Khanna, a translator for the Indian crew that was also brought to Mombasa and was on Monday awaiting clearance to sail to Dubai.

The seizure of the alleged pirates comes amid a surge in hijackings off the coast of Somalia where the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has reported 37 attacks on ships since mid-March of last year.

Although US Navy ships have intervened in pirate attacks in the area in the past, including firing warning shots, the February 21 incident was the first in which a suspect vessel or its crew were actually taken into custody.

Many in the region saw it as an indication the United States was prepared to become more involved in patrolling the waters following appeals from Somalia's largely powerless transitional government last year for international help.

Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to ply the 3,700 kilometer (2,300 mile) coast.

The surge in attacks has prompted dire warnings for mariners to stay at least 200 nautical miles (230 miles, 370 kilometers) from the coast and sparked calls for the area to be declared a war zone.

[hkskyline]

Ten Somalis charged with piracy in Kenyan court
3 February 2006

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) - Ten Somali men were charged in a Kenyan court with piracy on Friday for attacking a dhow in the Indian Ocean, detaining and threatening its 16-member crew and demanding a ransom from the captain.

Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which has no effective government of its own to respond. The 10 Somali suspects had been captured by the U.S. Navy in international waters.

A court interpreter read out the charges in Somali to the men, who were not represented and have been in Kenyan police custody since Sunday when the U.S. Navy presented them to authorities in the East African nation.

Hassan Mohammed Ahmed, one of the 10 suspected pirates, said that they are innocent and did not know why they were in court.

Principal Magistrate Beatrice Jaden ordered the government to hire a lawyer for them before the 10 men return for the next court appearance, on Monday.

Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Margaret Mwangi said that this is the first time a piracy case will be tried in Kenya and asked Jaden to speed up the hearings because witnesses such as the dhow's Indian crew and sailors of the U.S. Navy would like to continue with their journey.

The U.S. Navy boarded the vessel on Jan. 22 in response to a report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur two days earlier that said pirates had fired on the MV Delta Ranger, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier that was passing some 320 kilometers (200 miles) off the central eastern coast of Somalia.

The dhow's crew later told Navy investigators that pirates hijacked the vessel on Jan. 16 near Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and thereafter used it to stage pirate attacks on merchant ships.

Somalia has been in chaos since opposition leaders ousted a dictatorship in 1991 and then turned on each other, leaving the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million a patchwork of warlord fiefdoms.

[hkskyline]

Kenyan Court Lacks Jurisdiction In Piracy Case - Lawyers
8 February 2006

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP)--Lawyers for 10 Somalis accused of piracy argued Wednesday a Kenyan court has no legal authority to try the suspects because they aren't its citizens, the alleged offense occurred in international waters and the victims weren't Kenyan nationals.

The accused first appeared in court Monday and were charged with attacking a vessel, a traditional dhow, in the Indian Ocean, detaining and threatening its 16-member Indian crew and demanding a ransom from the captain.

Defense lawyer Moses Waweru argued Wednesday prosecutors couldn't charge the suspects with piracy in Kenya because the country hasn't passed local laws that would make it possible to charge them under the U.N. Conventions of the Law of the Sea.

Assistant Deputy Director of Prosecution Margaret Mwangi, however, argued Kenyan law recognized the offense of piracy and the country was bound to try the suspects under the provisions of the U.N. of the Law of the Sea. The magistrate will rule on the arguments Thursday.

The suspected pirates were detained by U.S. sailors, who boarded the vessel Jan. 22 in response to a report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur that two days earlier pirates had fired on the MV Delta Ranger, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier 320 kilometers off the central eastern coast of Somalia.

The dhow's crew later told investigators pirates hijacked them Jan. 16 near Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and used their boat to attack merchant ships.

The U.S. Navy handed the suspect over to Kenyan authorities Jan. 29.

Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which has no effective government of its own to respond. The Horn of African nation has been in chaos since opposition leaders ousted a dictatorship in 1991 and then turned on each other.

[hkskyline]

Somali Piracy Trial Begins In Kenya
14 February 2006

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP)--The trial of 10 Somalis charged with piracy began in a Kenyan courtroom Tuesday, with the captain of a hijacked ship saying that the suspects tried to use his ship to seize three others before they were captured by the U.S. Navy.

Akbar Ali Suleiman, master of the India-based Safina Al Bisaarat, described to the court how his ship was taken two days after leaving the Somali port of Kismayo en route to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The suspects intercepted his ship 450 kilometers at sea. He said he was awoken by his crew when the suspects approached in two boats and he tried to outrun them.

"I immediately instructed my engineer to increase the speed of the ship because I knew we were under attack since we were in a pirate prone zone," he said.

The suspects in the speedboats caught up with the ship, and armed with pistols, assault rifles and anti-tank weapons, eight of them boarded the ship, Suleiman told the court.

"Once inside, the eight people started beating and threatening us and making demands," he said. "One of them pushed me on the side and beat me up asking me to produce satellite phones and $50,000, which I did not have."

Over the next few days, the suspects tried to use Safina Al Bisaarat to capture other ships, but they were either to high, or too fast, Suleiman said.

"On all those days, there was continuous torture, the accused were feeding on our food and were not allowing us to eat anything, but our cook could secretly feed us," he said. "On the fifth day we saw a U.S. Navy helicopter circling our ship and on the following day the U.S. Marines approached us using their ship and started hooting continuously."

Suleiman said he and his crew hid under their cargo of charcoal when the U.S. frigate began firing warning shots. Eventually the pirates stopped the ship, and U.S. forces boarded the vessel.

The suspected pirates were detained by the U.S. sailors who boarded the vessel on Jan. 22 in response to a report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur two days earlier that pirates had fired on the MV Delta Ranger, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier that was 320 kilometers off the central eastern coast of Somalia.

The U.S. Navy handed the suspect over to Kenyan authorities Jan. 29.

Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which has no effective government of its own to respond. The Horn of African nation has been in chaos since opposition leaders ousted a dictatorship in 1991 and then turned on each other.

The trial was expected to continue Wednesday.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates threw weapons into the sea after spotting U.S. Navy ship, witness says
15 February 2006

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) - Ten Somali pirates who hijacked an Indian-based ship threw their most lethal weapons into the sea when they spotted a U.S. Navy ship, a witness told a Kenyan court Wednesday.

Akbar Ali Suleiman, master of the Safina Al Bisaarat, said the pirates hid other weapons in one of their boats that they used in the raid, but U.S. sailors who intervened to end the hijacking found them.

Suleiman's ship was seized by pirates two days after leaving the Somali port of Kismayo en route to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

"They were also shooting (rocket-propelled grenades) at our vessel which was loaded with charcoal and there was a risk of it exploding since the charcoal was flammable," he told the Mombasa Senior Principal Magistrate Beatrice Jaden.

"I was also not able to send out any distress signal because although our vessel was in motion, the generator had been switched off and it had to be in operation if any of us wanted to communicate," he said.

The suspected pirates were detained by the U.S. sailors who boarded the vessel on Jan. 22 in response to a report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur two days earlier that pirates had fired on the MV Delta Ranger, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier that was 320 kilometers (200 miles) off the central eastern coast of Somalia.

Suleiman said he and his crew hid under their cargo of charcoal when the U.S. frigate began firing warning shots. Eventually the pirates stopped the ship, and U.S. forces boarded the vessel.

The U.S. Navy handed the suspect over to Kenyan authorities on Jan. 29.

Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which has no effective government of its own to respond. The Horn of African nation has been in chaos since opposition leaders ousted a dictatorship in 1991 and then turned on each other.

The trial was expected to continue Thursday.

[hkskyline]

U.S. Navy officer testifies in Kenyan court against 10 Somalis accused of piracy
17 February 2006

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) - A U.S. Navy officer testified in a Kenyan court Friday against 10 Somali men accused of piracy, saying U.S. sailors detained the suspects after firing warning shots that forced their vessel to stop.

Lt. Lucas Michael Grant told the court that the U.S. sailors, who are part of an anti-terrorism task force based in Djibouti, detained the 10 Somalis on Jan. 22 in an operation involving U.S. military helicopters and a warship that fired several warning shots.

Grant said the U.S. troops, who were responding to a hijacking report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur, tracked down an Indian-based vessel that the suspected pirates had taken over and were using to attack other ships.

Days earlier, the Somalis used the hijacked ship in a failed attack on the MV Delta Ranger, a bulk carrier sailing under the flag of the Bahamas, when it was 320 kilometers (200 miles) off the eastern coast of Somalia, Grant said.

After tracking down and monitoring the ship overnight, U.S. troops attempted to call over the radio and a loud speaker to the vessel, the Safina Al Bisaarat, but received no response, Grant said.

"Our ship then fired warning shots and the vessel stopped but there was still no response from the crew inside," he said.

The ship's captive crew members later displayed signs indicating a radio frequency which they would use to communicate. Another had the word "help" written on it, Grant said.

The sailors then asked the Somalis to surrender, and the 10 suspected pirates and 16 crew members boarded the U.S. ship.

The ship's Indian captain told the U.S. sailors that his vessel had been hijacked two days after leaving the Somali port of Kismayo en route to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Grant said.

U.S. sailors who searched the ship found an AK-47 assault rifle, he said.

The American troops had also planned to search a skiff the vessel was towing, but called it off when they discovered cylindrical objects they believed were explosives, Grant said.

The U.S. Navy handed the suspects over to Kenyan authorities on Jan. 29.

Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which has no effective government of its own to respond. The Horn of Africa nation has been in chaos since opposition leaders ousted a dictatorship in 1991 and then turned on each other.

[hkskyline]

Indonesian pirates jailed for attack on Malaysian tanker: report

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20, 2006 (AFP) - Nine Indonesians, mainly from the tsunami-hit province of Aceh, have been jailed for seven years for a pirate attack on a Malaysian-owned tanker, local media said Monday.

The Sessions Court on Sunday sentenced the group for carrying out the armed, pre-dawn attack on the Nepline Delima off the northern resort island of Langkawi in the Malacca Strait last June.

The tanker was carrying 12 million ringgit (3.23 million dollars') worth of diesel from Malaysia's Port Klang to Myanmar when it was boarded.

The attack was foiled when a quick-thinking crewman from the tanker leapt into the piractes' boat and sped off to alert police.

Court officials were not immediately available to confirm the report Monday.

The Malacca Strait, separating the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula, is one of the world's most important waterways, with 50,000 ships carrying about one-third of world trade passing through it each year.

It is notoriously vulnerable to pirate attacks.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates seize another Indian dhow

NAIROBI, Feb 26, 2006 (AFP) - Gunmen on Sunday hijacked an Indian dhow with 25 crew members in the high seas off Somalia's pirate-infested coastline, a maritime official said.

"We do not know the exact location, but we suspect it was in northeastern Somalia," said Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme in the Kenyan port town of Mombasa.

Mwangura added that he was in touch with Indian maritime officials to get more information about the siezed cargo vessel and its crew.

Somalia's coastline has increasingly become risky to ships sailing the Indian Ocean, with 37 attacks on vessels reported by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) since mid-March 2005.

Last month, a US navy ship seized 10 suspected Somali pirates who allegedly hijacked an Indian merchant dhow. They are now facing trial before a Kenyan court where they have denied the charges.

Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ousting of President Mohamed Siad Barre and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to ply the 2,300-mile (3,700-kilometre) coast.

[mic of Orion]

terrible, I hate pirates. Commercial ships should carry at least 5 security experts armed withy sniper riffles and machine guns to prevent any further such attacks on ships by pirates, anyone found helping the pirates should face 20 years or more in a prison...

[hkskyline]

Niger Delta militants storm fuel tanker ship

WARRI, Nigeria, Feb 28, 2006 (AFP) - Nigerian separatist militants stormed a tanker ship working in the Niger Delta and took a large sum of cash on Tuesday, 12 days after they kidnapped nine foreign oil workers from another vessel.

The boarding of the kerosene tanker, which was working on the Escravos River in an area controlled by heavily armed ethnic Ijaw guerrilla fighters, came as Nigerian officials attempted to negotiate the safe release of the hostages.

"The tanker was intercepted by a patrol and set on its way. No one was hurt or kidnapped," said a spokesman for the rebel group, in a message sent from an email address previously used to distribute photographs of the kidnapped oilmen.

The insurgent spokesman said the tanker captain had parted with 500,000 naira as a "goodwill token" during the encounter, although a shipping industry source put the sum at two million naira (15,500 dollars / 13,000 euros).

"I think the ship captain has kept the rest for himself and crew," the anonymous rebel joked, explaining the discrepancy between the figures.

Henry Imhanlenjaye, who runs a fleet of small passenger boats operating from the oil port of Warri, told AFP by telephone that the attack had taken place on the Escravos River in an area controlled by the hostage-taking gang.

The Escravos connects Warri's refinery and docks to the Atlantic and runs past the ethnic Ijaw town of Okerenkoko, where the self-styled Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is believed to be holding its hostages.

An AFP reporter who toured the Escravos by boat on Friday found the river was patrolled by several fast war boats carrying heavily armed militants, who presented one of the nine captive foreign workers to journalists.

MEND seized the nine oilmen on February 18 during a series of armed attacks on security forces and oil facilities near the energy giant Shell's Forcados export terminal, 20 kilometres (13 miles) south of Tuesday's incident.

The attacks forced Shell to suspend production across the western Niger Delta, slashing output by 455,000 barrels of crude per day and cutting exports from Africa's largest oil producer by 20 percent.

The hostages work for the Shell subcontractor Willbros, a US-owned engineering firm.

They are Cody Oswald, Russel Spell and Macon Hawkins from the United States; British security expert John Hudspith; Bardese Mohammed and Aly Shady of Egypt; Tony Santos of the Philippines and Thailand's Muado Somsak and Arak Suwana.

Hawkins will turn 69 on Wednesday and suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure but on Friday, while surrounded by gunmen on board and rebel war boat, he told reporters that he had received medication and was feeling well.

Delta State's Governor James Ibori told reporters in Warri that a panel set up by his office to negotiate for the workers was making progress, but he backtracked form earlier assurances that their release was imminent.

"We do not have good news for you yet. We are still hopeful. The team that is working on this is working hard. They are credible," he said.

"We should reduce and shun the speculation on the release for now and allow the committee to do its work," he added.

He said that the rebels "demanded a guarantee that there would be no further military attacks on them and we have given them that guarantee."

In the week prior to the kidnapping, the Nigerian military struck targets around Okerenkoko with a ground attack helicopter, in what they said was an operation against oil smugglers.

The rebels have been dismissive in the past about Ibori's peace initiative, but their spokesman said Tuesday that the Thai, Egyptian and Filipino hostages might soon be allowed to go "before they cause a famine in our camp.

"Aside from their families, I don't think anyone is too bothered about them," he said, in an emailed response to a question from AFP.

[hkskyline]

Indonesia Navy Holds Antiterror Drill In Malacca Strait
8 March 2006

BATAM, Indonesia (AP)--Indonesian marines launched a mock operation to storm a ship Wednesday to free hundreds of passengers held hostage by men posing as Islamic militants in an antiterrorism drill in the Strait of Malacca.

Fifteen men pretending to be terrorists from the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiyah hijacked the state-owned Kelud and threatened to blow it up unless their jailed comrades were released from Indonesian prisons.

The 1,400 passengers aboard the Kelud - on a scheduled trip from the Indonesian city of Medan to the capital Jakarta - had been informed of the morning drill.

An elite unit of 25 marines parachuted into the Strait from a Hercules C-130 aircraft and approached the ship by stealth on rubber rafts, using ropes and hooks to board.

Another group parachuted onto the ship's deck, while a third was dropped on board by helicopter - freeing the hostages and retaking control of the vessel within 20 minutes.

Three terrorists were "killed" in the process.

The Malaccan Strait, which lies between the Indonesian island of Sumatra, Malaysia and Singapore, is among the world's busiest shipping lanes. Western and Asian governments have expressed concern that the vital seaway could be targeted by terrorists.

[hkskyline]

Somali Militiamen Deny Shooting First
19 March 2006

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Somali militiamen who skirmished with U.S. Navy vessels denied Sunday that they had fired the first shot, claiming that they had been patrolling Somali waters to stop illegal fishing.

On Saturday, two U.S. Navy ships exchanged gunfire with the suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia, killing one and wounding five. No U.S. sailors were injured. The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet said again on Sunday that its ships did not fire first, disputing the militiamen's version.

"The Navy ship returned fire after being fired upon," fleet spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown told The Associated Press.

The incident took place in international waters and the Navy took a dozen suspects, including the wounded, into custody after the gunbattle.

Saleban Aadan Barqad, a spokesman for the militiamen, said a total of 27 Somali militiamen had been patrolling off the coast before the gunbattle. Fourteen returned to shore safely, Barqad said on two-way radio from the central Somali town of Harardhere.

The U.S. Navy opened fire first on the small utility boat, which was towing a pair of skiffs, Barqad said. He said the boat then caught fire.

The militiamen, "were in an operation to protect the country's sea resources from illicit exploitation by foreign vessels," Barqad said.

Geraad Mohamud, from the same militia group, said they would kill any hostage they capture and would attack any ship unlawfully plying Somali waters unless their men were released.

Brown said on Saturday that the shootout ensued after the Navy ships, patrolling the area as part of a Dutch-led task force, spotted the suspect 30-foot-long fishing boat towing smaller skiffs and prepared to board and inspect the vessels.

A statement from the Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said the suspected pirates were holding what appeared to be rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

When the suspects began shooting, gunners on the American ships returned fire with mounted machine guns, killing one man and igniting a fire on the vessel.

The Navy boarding teams confiscated an RPG launcher and automatic weapons, the statement said.

The Navy said the incident involving the Norfolk, Va.-based USS Cape St. George and USS Gonzalez occurred approximately 25 nautical miles off the Somali coast.

Piracy on Somali waters steeply increased last year, with the number of incidents rising to 35, compared with only two in 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The increase in piracy included attacks on vessels carrying food aid for Somalis and a cruise ship.

Somalia has not had a coast guard or navy since 1991 when warlords ousted a dictatorship and then turned on each other.

The troubles facing Somalia's fledging 17-month-old transitional government, including piracy, will be discussed at regional leaders' meeting Monday.

On Friday, Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister Raphael Tuju renewed a call for a peacekeeping mission to Somalia to help disarm the country's various militias.

On March 15, the U.N. Security Council encouraged naval forces operating off Somalia to take action against suspected piracy. Pirate attacks against aid ships have hindered U.N. efforts to provide relief to the victims of a severe drought in the area.

------

Associated Press Writer Nadia Abou el-Magd contributed to this report from Cairo.

[hkskyline]

Malaysia says Australia, UK, NZealand may play role in Malacca Strait security
27 March 2006

KUALA LUMPUR (AFX) - Australia, Britain and New Zealand may play a role in securing the Malacca Strait but the sovereignty of bordering states will be safeguarded, Malaysia's defence minister said.

'They are interested in the situation in the Straits of Malacca,' Najib Razak said after talks with the armed forces chiefs of Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and Singapore, who form the Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA).

'They are studying how the FPDA can help ensure security in the Straits of Malacca, in terms of capacity-building to help Malaysia and the other littoral states,' Najib told a news conference.

Asked if the FPDA member countries will join Malaysia's 'Eyes in the Sky' aerial patrol initiative, he said 'They can join the Eyes in the Sky program as long as it doesn't infringe on the sovereignty of the littoral states.'

'If they offer their own aircraft, it must be operated by Malaysian armed forces personnel.'

'For example if they offer a maritime aircraft, the consoles of that aircraft must be operated together with Malaysian personnel. This is one of the pre-conditions under the Eyes in the Sky program,' he said.

Under the FPDA, which was signed in 1971, the five nations will consult each other in the event of external aggression or threat of attack against either Southeast Asian country.

Najib said the FPDA has been expanded beyond traditional territorial threats to deal with non-conventional security threats such as terrorism, and conducts regular security exercises focusing on acts of terror.

The Eyes in the Sky project involving Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand was launched last September, with each of the countries taking turns conducting aerial patrols of the strait.

The Malacca Strait is one of the world's most important waterways, with 50,000 ships carrying about one-third of the globe's trade passing through it each year.

[hkskyline]

Japanese ship attacked in Malacca Strait

TOKYO, April 6, 2006 (AFP) - Pirates attacked a Japanese-skippered freighter in the Malacca Strait off Indonesia's Sumatra island, stealing cash and equipment, the Japan Coast Guard said Thursday.

It was the latest attack in the region reported by Japan, which has stepped up aid to fight piracy in Southeast Asia as nearly all of the oil powering its economy comes through the strait.

The Panamanian-registered ship was carrying iron ore when attacked on March 21 by six pirates who approached on a small boat, the coast guard said.

The attackers tied up crew members with rope and robbed a safe of more than 4,000 dollars, it said.

No casualties were reported among the 21 crew and the freighter docked this week, it said. An investigation is under way.

The Nippon Foundation, a Tokyo-based maritime industry body, has built 45 lighthouses and spent 100 million dollars in navigational assistance to fight piracy in the Malacca Strait between Sumatra and Malaysia.

The Japan Coast Guard said 276 pirate attacks took place around the world in 2005, 122 of them in the waters of Southeast Asia.

The ease with which pirates board ships in the strait has raised concerns in Japan and the West that extremists could hijack a tanker to use as a floating bomb or to block the vital channel and disrupt world trade.

About one-third of world trade passes through the Malacca Strait each year.

[El_Greco]

Jeez.You are one big spammer hkskyline :ohno:

[todo_el_día]

^ fuck off el_greco, who do you think are you? You are spammer!
HKSkyline is a very nice forumer :bash:

[El_Greco]

^ lol that guy (hkskl) makes a thread nobody looks at it but he still continues to post in it.why?

[hkskyline]

There are people reading it. They pop in and out now and then and make posts. I don't post for the sake of getting replies. I post whenever there is something relevant regardless of how many replies I get. For those interested in maritime history, piracy is a big issue right now, not just because of terrorism, but also because a huge chunk of the world's trade is transported by sea.

89 posts and 1294 reads. There certainly are people browsing the contents in here.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates demand 400,000 dollars for release of SKorean ship

MOGADISHU, April 7, 2006 (AFP) - Somali pirates are demanding 400,000 dollars (326,000 euros) for the release of a South Korean fishing vessel seized with a crew of 25 Asians this week off the coast of the lawless nation, elders said Friday.

Village elders -- the traditional power base of rural Somalia -- in the area near where the ship is being held said the gunmen who commandeered the vessel were seeking payment of a "fine" for illegal fishing and not a ransom.

"This is not a vessel that brought humanitarian aid to Somalia, it is not a commercial ship passing through international waters," said one elder taking part in negotiations to free the Dong Won 628 and its crew.

"It came to take our marine resources maybe by making deals with the wrong people, who claim to be national officials," he told AFP by phone from the port of Obbia, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Mogadishu where the ship is believed to be held.

"I can personally say that 400,000 dollars would be acceptable, a fine offer on both sides," said the elder, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This is not a ransom but a fine for illegally fishing in Somalia."

Somali pirates have in the past demanded a 300,000-dollar "fine" and 1,000 dollars per crew member for the release of ships and sailors they have seized for alleged illegal use of Somalia's waters.

As the talks were set to continue, a maritime official in neighboring Kenya said the 350-tonne vessel's owners, Dongwon Fisheries, had obtained a fishing license from Somalia's fledgling and largely powerless transitional government.

The South Korean firm was paying 4,500 dollars per month for fishing rights, mainly to catch tuna, in Somalia's Exclusive Economic Zone, according to the official who said the contract was valid from March to May 10.

Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme (SAP) said he had seen a copy of the license signed by company officials and Hassan Abshir Farah, the natural resources minister in the transitional government.

Farah could not be reached for comment.

Contracts with the year-old transitional government are often not recognized by local warlords, militia and elders in Somalia, which has been in the throes of anarchy since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre.

Numerous fishing vessels have been seized by Somali pirates who since last year have staged an increasing number of attacks on commericial ships plying the waters of the country's unpatrolled 2,300-mile (3,700-kilometre) coast.

The seizure of the Dong Won 628, which was hijacked on Tuesday with its crew of eight Koreans, nine Indonesians, five Vietnamese and three Chinese, was the 41st attack on a ship off Somalia since March last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

[hkskyline]

Captain of hijacked SKorean vessel says crew treated well

NAIROBI, April 13, 2006 (AFP) - The captain of a South Korean fishing vessel hijacked by Somali pirates off the coast of the lawless nation this month said the ship's crew was unharmed and not being mistreated by their captors.

The master of the Dong Won 628, which was seized by gunmen in the pirate infested waters off northeast Somalia on April 4, told mediators seeking the release of the ship that he and the other 24 crew members were in good health.

"We are in good health and we have been allowed to talk to the ship owner," Captain Sung Sik Choi told the mediators in a radio call arranged by the hijackers as a good will gesture as talks on releasing the ship continue.

"We have not been threatened," Sung was quoted as saying by Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers Assistance Programme in the Kenyan port of Mombasa, which is assisting in the discussions.

Mwangura told AFP that talks on releasing the vessel were proceeding smoothly and that a "court" in the Somali town of Hobyo near where the ship was seized was expected to rule on the matter "in four or five days time."

He said he suspected that the negotiations were being hampered by a ransom demand from the pirates who insist that the ship was engaged in illegal fishing in Somali waters and are insisting on a "fine" for the transgression.

Last week, a Somali elder involved in the talks said the gunmen wanted 400,000 dollars (326,000 euros) for the release of the ship and its crew of nine Indonesians, eight South Koreans, five Vietnamese and three Chinese.

"This is not a ransom but a fine for illegally fishing in Somalia," the elder told AFP on Friday on condition of anonymity from Hobyo, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Mogadishu, where the ship is believed to be held.

Somali pirates have in the past demanded a 300,000-dollar "fine" and 1,000 dollars per crew member for the release of ships and sailors they have seized for alleged illegal use of Somalia's waters.

Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to prey along the 3,700-kilometer (2,300-mile) coast.

The seizure of the Dong Won 628 was the 41st attack on a ship off Somalia since March last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

[hkskyline]

Alleged Somali pirates freed after US declines to prosecute

NAIROBI, May 2, 2006 (AFP) - A group of alleged Somali pirates captured by the US Navy in March have been freed and returned home to lawless Somalia after the United States declined to prosecute them, US officials said Tuesday.

Ten of 12 suspected pirates detained on March 18 after firing on US warships in the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast were handed over to the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) and repatriated at the weekend, they said.

"The United States decided not to prosecute these 10 individuals in the United States, they were returned instead to Somalia," said an official with the US embassy in Nairobi, which was involved in the release of the suspects.

"We thank both the government of Kenya and the ICRC for their assistance in repatriating them to their home country," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The 10 had been held on a US naval vessel off the coast of Kenya and were sent to the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on Saturday where they were turned over to the ICRC and sent back to Somalia, the official said.

The remaining two, both of whom were wounded when two US warships, the USS Cape St. George and the USS Gonzalez, returned fire on their vessel, remain under treatment, the embassy official said.

"They will be repatriated when it is medically safe to do so," the official said, adding that the body of one alleged pirate killed in the incident would be returned to Somalia after an autopsy.

According to the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, they fired rocket-propelled grenades at US ships that were pursuing them.

US sailors retaliated with light arms and seized them and their vessel.

The embassy official gave no reason for the decision to release the men.

But the Fifth Fleet said it had been made after the suspects were "screened for possible criminal activity and terrorist connections."

"After careful consideration, it was determined by the US government that repatriation would be the most effective and appropriate course of action in this matter," it said in a statement.

Warships from the United States, along with other maritime nations involved in the US-led war on terror, have been patrolling international waters off the Somali coast for some months to combat a surge in piracy.

Last month, Somali prime minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said his government and the United States had reached an agreement under which the US Navy would patrol Somali waters but Washington denied any deal had been struck.

Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre, and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to prey along the 3,700 kilometer (2,300 mile) coast.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has reported at least 41 attacks on ships off the Somali coast since mid-March of last year.

A separate group of alleged Somali pirates, captured by the US Navy on a hijacked Indian dhow in January, are now being tried in Mombasa, but Kenyan authorities are understood to have declined to prosecute those detained in March.

The US official said Washington remained committed to working with Somalia's transitional government to restoring law and order to the anarchic nation.

"We are working with Somali officials to develop a greater ability to prosecute and imprison those involved in serious crimes, including international piracy," the official said.

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Filipino seaman held hostage in Somalia tells family one of 20 captives has died
1 June 2006

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - One of 20 Filipino seamen held hostage in Somalia for nine weeks has died in captivity, his colleague told relatives Friday, as the crewmen's families appealed for government action to secure their release.

The men were seized by Somali pirates after their oil tanker, the United Arab Emirates-registered MT LIN1, offloaded its cargo at a southern Somali port on March 29, the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department said.

Spokesman Gilbert Asuque said the department could not immediately confirm the reported death of one of the hostages, but said the government was trying to contact the ship's owners, who have been negotiating with the hostage takers.

The owners were not identified.

One of the captives spoke with a relative in the Philippines by satellite phone, and in portions aired over Radio DZMM and ABS-CBN TV, he said one of the crewmen had died accidentally.

The hostage takers did not want the deceased man identified and the crewman gave no other details.

Wives of the crewmen appealed to the Philippine government for assistance.

Carmen Narciso, wife of chief engineer Perfecto Narciso, said Thursday that the gunmen were feeding their captives only once a day because food was scarce.

In a statement, the Foreign Affairs Department said it realizes "the need of the ship owners to have every available time and option to resolve this dispute with the Somali group." It also warned Filipino seafarers to avoid Somali waters or trading with Somali ports "in view of the difficult security situation in that country."

Piracy in Somalia rose sharply last year, with the number of reported incidents at 35, compared with two in 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The bandits target both passenger and cargo vessels for ransom or loot.

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IMB urges Lloyd's to drop Malacca Strait from piracy blacklist

KUALA LUMPUR, June 14, 2006 (AFP) - An international maritime watchdog has urged leading insurer Lloyd's to remove the Malacca Strait from a list of dangerous waterways, saying pirate attacks there had sharply declined.

"Based on the figures, there is no justification for them to include Malacca Strait in the list, unless Lloyd's has some other information that we are not aware of," said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre.

Choong said the Malacca Strait was "not a hot spot at the moment" as the three states bordering the strategic waterway -- Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore had launched aggressive joint patrols.

A history of piracy and kidnapping of seafarers prompted the three countries to launch joint sea and air patrols aimed at securing one of the world's most important waterways.

The Lloyd's Market Association's Joint War Committee decided in July last year to add the strait to a list of 20 areas worldwide -- alongside Iraq, Lebanon and Nigeria -- that it deemed security threats to shipping.

The classification by the LMA, a body that advises members of insurer Lloyd's of London, could result in underwriters imposing additional premiums on ships plying the strait.

Choong's comments came after it decided last month to retain the Malacca Strait on its war and terrorism listing.

However, during the first quarter of this year the IMB did not receive any reports of armed robbery or pirate attacks in the Malacca Strait which runs between Indonesia and Malaysia.

In April there were three attacks on fishing boats, Choong said, adding that in one instance, pirates in a speed boat fired at a fishing vessel but that the crew escaped unhurt.

"From our view, the problem areas now are Somalia, Chittagong in Bangladesh and Nigeria," Choong told AFP, adding that there had been 22 attacks on ships at anchor in Chittagong port between January and June this year.

Choong said that continued maritime patrols could influence Lloyd's to remove the strait from the listing.

"We feel their concern may be that the current measures taken by the three littoral states may be just a temporary action. Therefore they may look for clear signals before they remove the strait from the list," he said.

Choong said the littoral states must demonstrate their commitment to fighting piracy, adding that attacks had fallen after Indonesia boosted security patrols last year.

"But it is unclear, how long the patrols will last," he said.

"If these actions taken by littoral states are temporary, pirate attacks will definitely resurface," he warned.

Maritime officials have said that high cost of fuel is one key element restricting Indonesia's ability to conduct frequent maritime patrol along its vast coastline.

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Japanese cargo ship crew foils pirates attack after two UN craft hit in Malacca Strait
By EILEEN NG
4 July 2006

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - A Japanese cargo ship on Tuesday foiled a pirate attack in the Strait of Malacca off Indonesia, days after pirates raided two U.N.-chartered vessels in the same area, a maritime watchdog said.

The attacks raised concerns about a resurgence of piracy in the strait, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes and a key link between Asia and Europe.

The waterway was listed by Britain-based global shipping insurer Joint War Committee of the Lloyd's Market Association as a war risk area in June 2005, but had become largely peaceful since late last year following increased patrols by Indonesia's navy.

"We are extremely concerned with these three latest attacks in the same area," said Noel Choong, head of the London-based International Maritime Bureau's piracy center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "We have informed the Indonesian authorities, and we hope they will take action to contain the problem."

In the latest attack, pirates on an unlit blue speedboat off Indonesia's Aceh province followed the 26,989 gross tonnage Japanese ship and tried to board it from the back, Choong said.

A duty officer raised an alarm. The crew turned on floodlights and sprayed water from fire hoses, preventing the pirates from boarding, Choong said.

"They stopped the attack by raising the alarm," he said, adding that the pirates, suspected to have guns, chased the ship for five minutes before giving up.

On Sunday night, pirates boarded two U.N.-chartered ships carrying construction material for the reconstruction of the tsunami-hit Aceh.

Both ships, flying Indonesian flags, had sailed from Belawan on Indonesia's Sumatra island and were heading for Aceh when they were attacked, Choong said.

He said no injuries were reported among the all-Indonesian crew on the two vessels, hired by the U.N. World Food Program.

The Malacca Strait has typically been one of the world's most pirate-infested sea lanes, but attacks fell to an all-time low last year after Indonesia and its neighbors increased naval patrols.

"At the moment, we don't know if these are isolated cases or the start of attacks again in the Malacca Strait," Choong said. "We are still monitoring. But we urge ships to keep a strict piracy watch."

He said the first ship, heading to Lhokseumawe in Aceh, was attacked at 9:45 p.m. local time and the other ship, going to Calang, at around midnight.

The pirates stole and damaged some of the equipment on the first ship and robbed the crew of cash and personal belongings on the other, Choong said.

Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia officially began coordinated patrols in the 900-kilometer (550-mile) Malacca Strait in July 2004 after prodding from Washington, which said terrorists could link up with pirates already established in the narrow waterway to blow up an oil tanker or use it as a floating bomb.

The International Maritime Bureau had praised the increased security in the strait for causing a dramatic drop in piracy incidents last year and this year.

According to the IMB, there were no pirate attacks in the Strait of Malacca in the first three months of 2006, but the latest attacks raised to six the number of piracy incidents reported since April.

Each year, more than 50,000 ships, carrying half the world's oil and a third of its commerce, use the strait bordered by peninsular Malaysia and Singapore on one side and Sumatra on the other.

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Indonesia urged to bolster Malacca Strait security: IMB

KUALA LUMPUR, July 5, 2006 (AFP) - Indonesia should boost security in the Malacca Strait, an international maritime watchdog said Wednesday after pirates attacked a Japanese carrier and two UN ships off the coast of Aceh.

"We urge Indonesian authorities to take action to contain piracy in the strait," the head of the International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre, Noel Choong, told AFP.

Choong said piracy attacks had declined in the Malacca Strait dividing Malaysia and Singapore after Indonesia launched agressive patrols codenamed Operation Gurita.

In the latest incident Tuesday, pirates attacked the Japanese operated bulk carrier MV Island Oasis in waters off tsunami-hit Aceh.

The 20 Filipino crew prevented the pirates, believed to be Indonesian, from boarding the ship.

In the same area off the coast of Aceh in the north of the strait, pirates attacked two UN-chartered ships hours apart on Sunday.

In the first attack, some 12 pirates armed with AK47 rifles, hand grenades and pistols boarded the ship.

Both ships were ferrying construction materials to Indonesia for the UN's World Food Program when they were attacked under cover of darkness.

Choong said seafarers must remain alert when plying the strait which is one of the world's most important waterways.

Maritime officials have said that the high cost of fuel is one key element restricting Indonesia's ability to conduct frequent maritime patrols along its vast coastline.

Leading insurer Lloyd's has placed the Malacca Strait on its list of dangerous waterways.

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[hkskyline]

Kenyan court to rule next month in Somali piracy case

MOMBASA, Kenya, July 13, 2006 (AFP) - A Kenyan judge said Thursday she would deliver a verdict next month in the landmark trial of 10 alleged Somali pirates captured by the US navy off the coast of Somalia.

Magistrate Beatrice Jaden set an August 3 date to deliver her decision in the case, brought by Kenyan prosecutors in a bid to stem a surge in attacks on commercial shipping in the Indian Ocean around Somalia.

The case has drawn attention because the defendants were detained in international waters by the US military in an operation that highlighted insecurity in Somalia, where Islamist militias have since seized the capital.

The 10 were seized by the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, attached to the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, on January 21 about 55 miles (85 kilometers) off the Somali coast a day after an unsuccessful hijack attempt on a merchant ship.

The US military detained them aboard an Indian dhow from which they allegedly launched that and other attacks, and brought them to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

The accused are charged with unlawfully detaining an Indian vessel, the Safina Al Bisaraat, threatening the lives of its 16-member crew and demanding a ransom of 50,000 dollars (42,000 euros) for their release.

The defense has unsuccessfully tried to have the case thrown out, arguing that Kenya does not have jurisdiction in the matter because the men were taken into custody in international waters from an Indian ship.

Defense lawyers restated that position in closing arguments on Thursday, but the prosecution again rejected the claim.

"An offence of piracy has universal jurisdiction which exists where the acts took place regardless of the nationality of the offenders," prosecutor Margaret Mwangi said.

Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to prey along the 3,700 kilometer (2,300 mile) coast.

The seizure of the alleged pirates came amid a surge in hijackings off the coast, where the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has reported 41 attacks on vessels since March 2005, including one on a US luxury cruise ship.

[hkskyline]

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US committed to security in Malacca Strait, says top navy official

KUALA LUMPUR, July 17, 2006 (AFP) - The United States is prepared to share maritime expertise with Malaysia to fight piracy in the troubled Malacca Strait, a visiting admiral said Monday.

"It is a vital strait not just locally but internationally. It is one that we all have an interest in," the chief of US naval operations, Admiral Michael Mullen, told reporters.

"As we are developing future capabilities, certainly we are willing to share those with the Malaysian navy," he said.

Mullen said he had earlier met his Malaysian counterpart, Ilyas Din, to discuss the challenges faced in enforcing security in the strait which borders Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

"I spent a considerable amount of time with Ilyas to review (security in the strait) and where we can help do that -- whether it is training or the kinds of procedures that might be beneficial to both of us," he said.

Malaysia has repeatedly rejected the prospect of US anti-terrorism patrols being mounted in the Malacca Strait, and has criticised Singapore for apparently suggesting it was incapable of guarding the waterway.

However, last year Malaysia's Defence Minister Najib Razak said that the nations bordering the strait were seeking US involvement in a supporting role, by providing aircraft for patrols.

Leading insurer Lloyd's has placed the Malacca Strait, which sees about one-third of the globe's trade passing through it, on its list of dangerous waterways.

Mullen, however, said he was happy with the level of security despite six reported pirate attacks in the second quarter of 2006.

"The security level is fine," he said.

In the latest incident early this month pirates attacked the Japanese-operated bulk carrier MV Island Oasis in waters off tsunami-hit Aceh.

But the 20 Filipino crew prevented the pirates, believed to be Indonesian, from boarding the ship.

In the same area off the coast of Aceh in the north of the strait, pirates had two days earlier attacked two UN-chartered ships hours apart.

In the first attack, some 12 pirates armed with AK47 rifles, hand grenades and pistols boarded the ship.

Mullen is on a two-day visit to Malaysia as part of a Southeast Asian tour. He leaves for Singapore Tuesday and will travel later to Indonesia.

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20 Filipino seamen kidnapped in Somalia released after 3 1/2 months
17 July 2006

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Twenty Filipino seamen kidnapped by pirates in Somalia in March have been released and are on their way home, officials said Monday.

The men were freed unharmed on Saturday, and it wasn't immediately clear whether any ransom had been paid, said Roy Cimatu, the government's special envoy to the Middle East.

"I am not privy to their negotiations, but piracy is rampant there. So most likely ransom was paid. Almost all shipping lines pay ransom," Cimatu told The Associated Press.

The men were seized after their oil tanker, the United Arab Emirates-registered MT LIN1, offloaded its cargo at a southern Somali port on March 29, the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department said.

The department said the owners of the ship, the Akron Trade and Transport Co. based in Fujairah, the United Arab Emirates, negotiated for the men's release.

It said the company's representative, Manoj Sabharwal, informed the Philippine Embassy in the United Arab Emirates that all crew members were safe and none required medical attention.

They were expected to arrive in Fujairah next week, the department said.

Piracy in Somalia rose sharply last year, with 35 reported incidents compared to two in 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The bandits target both passenger and cargo vessels for ransom or to loot.

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8 South Korean sailors freed after kidnapping by Somali militia to return home
30 July 2006

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Eight South Korean fishermen released after being held for months by Somali pirates could return home as early as this weekend, a company official said Monday.

The South Koreans were set free along with nine Indonesians, five Vietnamese and three Chinese after paying more than US$800,000 (euro627,000) in ransom to the Somali militant group.

The South Koreans are scheduled to arrive at Mombasa, Kenya on Thursday and receive medical checkups and rest before flying Saturday to Seoul, said Jung Pan-jun, a spokesman for Dongwon Fisheries Co. Ltd.

Jung said 17 other sailors on the ship could either board operating in the Indian Ocean or return to their countries according to their wishes.

The militants seized the boat operated by Dongwon Fisheries in April, claiming they were defending their waters from illegal fishing.

South Korea have said the pirates captured the vessel in international waters and later steamed it into Somali waters.

Somalia has had no coast guard or navy since 1991, when warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another.

Piracy against commercial vessels dramatically increased last year, with the number of reported incidents at 35, compared with two in 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The bandits target both passenger and cargo vessels for ransom or loot. Pirates have also attacked a cruise ship.

The increase in piracy included attacks on vessels carrying food aid for Somalis, hampering U.N. relief efforts to drought victims.

Somalia's 3,000-kilometer (1,860 mile) coastline is Africa's longest.

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INTERVIEW-Foreign navies, Islamist rise deter Somali pirates
By Andrew Cawthorne

NAIROBI, Aug 2 (Reuters) - More foreign navy patrols and the anti-piracy stance of Mogadishu's new Islamist rulers have stemmed a wave of attacks in Somali waters that reached record proportions last year, a maritime group said on Wednesday.

Despite several attempts, there have been no successful pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa since June, said Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the Kenya-based Seafarers Assistance Programme, which monitors sailors' welfare in the region.

That compares with four successful attacks before June, and 45 in 2005: the worst year in several decades of monitoring.

Though June was the period when Islamists came to power in Mogadishu and some other southern towns, Mwangura said increased anti-piracy patrols by a U.S.-directed international operation in the area was in fact the bigger deterrent for Somali pirates.

"There is now a heavy presence of Coalition Task Force 150 patrolling quite a way out at sea off Somalia, that is what has really frightened the pirates," he told Reuters, referring to a multinational naval force coordinated from Bahrain.

"Also, the Islamists say piracy is against their religion, and the pirates are perhaps aware of that. But remember the militia carrying out the piracy operate down south and up north where the Islamists still don't have much influence."

The Islamists, who kicked out U.S.-backed warlords from Mogadishu after heavy battles earlier this year, say they have declared war on piracy and set up special patrols of their own outside key facilities like El Maan port north of the capital.

Businessmen linked to the Islamists say they believe pirates are now frightened by the prospect of facing sharia courts.

Pirate attacks are typically carried out by three speedboats each carrying six to 10 AK-47-wielding gunmen, Mwangura said.

$90 MILLION ILLEGAL TRADE

Mwangura said piracy was merely a symptom of a wider problem the world was failing to address: illegal fishing and dumping.

Somali militia were boarding boats on initially justifiable grounds to protect their waters from illegal entry by ships from countries like Korea, Italy, Spain and Thailand, he said.

The militia even operate in two main groups calling themselves the "Somali Coastguards" and the "National Volunteer Coastguards", he said. But then, like common pirates, they demand huge ransoms to release ships and cargos.

"Our problem is what they do at the end, not at the beginning, because Somali waters are full of illegal boats, and the international community is doing nothing," he said.

Some 500 illegal fishing boats are in Somali waters at any one time engaged in a $90 million a year business, mainly in tuna, Mwangura said. Toxic and industrial waste is also being dumped there, while there is a roaring trade in illegal charcoal and the mildly narcotic qat weed.

"To stop piracy in Somalia, you have to stop illegal fishing first," Mwangura said. "The Islamists cannot stop this, only the international community."

The United Nations should pressure countries to regulate their trawlers, individual nations should demand to know the origins of catches being brought home, and known "mafia businessmen" behind the trade should be tracked down, he said.

Mwangura said poor African, Asian and eastern European sailors were suffering appallingly during hijackings at sea, while businessmen ordering the attacks were living safely in Dubai, Nairobi and elsewhere.

"We have told the authorities. We have been giving information to Kenyan security, but they do nothing," he said.

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Indonesia key to end piracy in Malacca Straits
Richel Langit-Dursin, Contributor, Kuala Lumpur
6 August 2006
The Jakarta Post

Maritime experts have urged Indonesia to put an end to piracy attacks in the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest sea routes.

In a recent conference on Covering Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia, experts accused the Indonesian government of not seriously dealing with the piracy problem in the Strait of Malacca, the main ocean highway from Asia to Europe.

"To stop piracy attacks in the Malacca Straits, Indonesia needs to improve its governance," Mak Joon Num, an analyst at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, said in an interview.

Mak was one of the speakers in the two-day conference on maritime piracy, which was organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in the capital of Malaysia, one of the littoral states of the Strait of Malacca and the seat of the International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Center.

Mak recalled that in the late 1990s former strongman Soeharto, embarrassed by piracy attacks, ordered a massive crackdown on suspected Indonesian pirates and for several years there were no piracy cases in Indonesian waters, including the Strait of Malacca.

Maritime experts pointed out that rogue elements of Indonesian enforcement agencies, including the Indonesian Navy are involved in piracy attacks in the strait, but Indonesian authorities are turning a blind eye to the problem.

In Belakang Padang, off the coast of Batam, residents, including the village chief, know the pirates, who move freely during the day in the area, but nobody dares to arrest them.

"The police in Belakang Padang have no will to stop piracy and armed robbery against ships in the Malacca Straits," said Paris Institute of Political Studies researcher Eric Frecon, who stayed with the pirates in Belakang Padang and made a documentary film, Piracy in the Straits .

"The local police are not only tolerant of the criminal activities of the pirates, but they are also accomplices and act as bodyguards of the pirates," Frecon said, adding that poverty and unemployment spark piracy attacks.

A former pirate, Marcus Uban, asserted that he left for Batam to become a pirate in order to earn a living.

"Just like me, many came from a miserable kampong life and we targeted cargo ships," said Uban, who has opened a karaoke bar in Batam and promised to become "a good man".

In addition to not having the will to stop piracy, the Indonesian authorities do not have the means. In Belakang Padang, for instance, policemen operate with only two small one-engine wooden boats, although the place is a major pirate den.

"The small islands suffer from lack of care and attention from Jakarta," Frecon said.

Every year, more than 60,000 vessels use the Strait of Malacca, the only passage that is economically viable. Annually, around 30 percent of world trade and 50 percent of world energy need to pass through the 937 kilometer-long waterway.

Cargo ships are not the only victims of piracy, but also trawler fishermen in the strait, which is between Malaysia on one side and the Indonesian island of Sumatra on the other.

Experts, however, lamented that reporting on maritime piracy is biased, with piracy attacks against fishermen underreported and receiving less attention.

"Fishermen are attacked all the time and piracy has become a sustainable activity," Mak said. "The predators are all based in Sumatra and weak governance allows predations to be well-organized."

In Hutan Melintang, a fishing community in Malaysia, trawler fishermen complained that since the 1970s, "lost commands" of Indonesian enforcement agencies are responsible for 50 percent of the piracy attacks against them.

On average, Hutan Melintang is hit by one predation a month and the fishermen are the silent victims, providing bread and butter to Indonesian pirates. There are more than 900 large boats in Hutan Melintang and 400 trawl regularly in the middle and northern approaches of the Strait of Malacca.

"The problem of piracy is land-based. It can only be solved by tackling issues in Indonesia such as corruption," Mak said, adding that Indonesia has to settle its boundary dispute with Malaysia as it is providing renegades with reason to arrest fishermen's boats.

Indonesia and Malaysia have yet to ink a territorial sea agreement covering the northern end of the Strait of Malacca.

Maritime experts, however, stressed that pirates are driven by economics, not by ideology and there is no link between piracy cases in the strait and terrorism.

"It is very unlikely that pirates have a real interest in helping terrorists," Frecon said, adding that as long as poverty and unemployment remain significant economic problems, piracy would exist.

Apart from resolving its border dispute with Malaysia and establishing its own coast guard, Indonesia should also strengthen its cooperation with Singapore, which had expressed concern about possible terrorist attacks in the Strait of Malacca.

"International cooperation for piracy prevention in Southeast Asia remains essentially an ad hoc process," said Sam Bateman, senior fellow in the Maritime Security Program of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore.

The former Royal Australian Navy commodore stressed that cooperation remains bogged down by the divergent interests of the different stakeholders, which include the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and India.

Bateman, however, said measures for international maritime security cooperation in the Southeast Asian region should also encompass the prevention of other illegal activities at sea, such as the prevention of trafficking in arms, drugs and people.

"Measures for international maritime security cooperation in the region should not be focused solely on piracy prevention and the concomitant risks of maritime terrorism," he said.

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Somali pirates flee base seized by Islamists

MOGADISHU, Aug 15, 2006 (AFP) - Gangs of Somalians accused of taking part in a spate of ship hijackings have fled their main base of Haradere after Islamic militia seized the town at the weekend, residents said Tuesday.

Townspeople said gunmen suspected of masterminding and carrying out more than 40 attacks on commercial vessels off Somalia's Indian Ocean coast over the past year had left Haradere, a central township near the coastline known as a base for piracy.

"The pirates are on the run, they are afraid of the Islamic court militia that have arrived," said Ahmed Abdullahi, a businessman in the town about 300 kilometers (185 miles) north of Mogadishu.

"Some went to Mogadishu to pursue decent lives, I know three of them," he told AFP by phone from Haradere, where many of the dozens ships seized by the pirates since last March were taken after their capture and held for ransom.

"The pirates are not crazy, they know what they did to their victims and they know what their punishment will be under Islamic law and the militia will kill them if they try to fight," said another resident Abdi Hassan.

Under the increasingly strict brand of Sharia law enforced by the Islamists who have been expanding their authority since taking control of Mogadishu in June, thieves, including pirates, can be punished severely.

Sentences of death as well as amputations of arms, hands and feet will be handed down to those convicted of piracy, according to an official with the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) that now runs Haradere.

"If any person tries to commit piracy in this area, we will make life hard for him as stipulated in the Koran," the official told AFP.

Somalia has been without a functioning central government for the past 16 years and pirates had increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to prey on vessels along its unpatrolled 3,700-kilometer (2,300 mile) coast.

The International Maritime Bureau reported more than 40 attacks on vessels in or just outside Somali waters between March 2005 and last month when the last of the hijacked ships, a South Korean fishing trawler, was released.

The surge in pirate activity had prompted dire warnings to avoid the area and appeals for international help from Somalia's weak transitional government.

However, maritime officials cautioned that the Somali coast was not yet safe for commercial shipping.

Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme said the development was no guarantee that Somali waters were safe.

[hkskyline]

User countries should chip in for Malacca Strait security: Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 11, 2006 (AFP) - Maintaining security in the Malacca Strait is costing countries bordering the strategic waterway millions annually and user states should share the burden, Malaysia's transport minister said Monday.

"The responsibility to keep the strait safe, secure and clean shouldn't be only the sole responsibility of the littoral states. The user states should also ... contribute," Chan Kong Choy told reporters.

"We hope that the international maritime community can respond positively to the call, not only from Malaysia but the littoral states of the Straits of Malacca including Singapore and also Indonesia," he said.

Ships from Europe, the Middle East and Asia carrying about one-third of global trade pass through the Malacca Strait each year, while some 11 million barrels of oil pass through it daily.

More than 60,000 ships used the waterway in 2005, and traffic volume is forecast to double by 2020, according to Malaysian estimates.

Chan said it was costing the littoral states "hundreds of millions" of ringgit to set up and maintain security measures in one of the world's most important waterways.

"It's substantial. To put the navigational aids in place, the sea patrol, air patrol, is substantial. It's a very heavy burden to all the littoral states," he said. "And it's recurring every year."

Chan said littoral states had already discussed the issue of "burden sharing" amongst themselves and would explore the issue at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur next week.

He said Malaysia had already held bilateral discussions with a number of user states on the issue.

"I think the response has been quite positive," he said.

The transport minister told industry participants at the Asia Maritime and Logistics conference here that safety and security measures had a "financial dimension" as well.

In addition to maritime terrorism and piracy, littoral states also had to worry about ship accidents and marine pollution from increased vessel traffic, he said.

"This is indeed an enormous task, burden and responsibility that we the littoral states bear," Chan said in a keynote address to the conference.

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Experts: Foreign military help needed to guard against terror in Malacca Strait
By EILEEN NG
12 September 2006

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Joint patrols by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are inadequate to secure the Malacca Straits if there is a major terrorist strike and foreign military help should be considered, experts said Tuesday.

The three states straddling the strategic waterway launched coordinated maritime patrols in 2004 and air patrols last year after prodding from Washington, which feared terrorists could link up with pirates to blow up an oil tanker or use it as a floating bomb.

However, the three nations rejected foreign military help. Malaysia and Indonesia shot down a U.S. proposal in 2004 to send an elite unit to help secure the pirate-infested strait.

The overall capabilities of the three littoral states are "evidently inadequate to provide a lasting security in the strait," which remains a vulnerable maritime choke point, said Gurpreet Khurana, research fellow at India's Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis.

He said the 2003 seizure of a tanker off Indonesian water by ten armed men to learn how to steer a ship had led to anxieties it could be a "precursor of a maritime 9/11."

Some analysts viewed it as equivalent to terrorists who took flying lessons at Florida flight school before the 9/11 attack in the United States five years ago.

"It may be necessary for the littorals to contemplate guidelines -- Standard Operating Procedures and Rules of Engagement -- for joint patrols in the straits," Khurana said in a paper presented at a regional maritime conference here.

Pirate attacks in the Malacca Strait, which links Asia with Europe and the Middle East, fell to 12 last year, down from 38 in 2004. Each year, more than 50,000 ships, carrying half the world's oil and a third of its commerce, navigate the waterway.

Khurana said it would be tough for terrorists to physically block the Malacca Straits with a capsized vessel but a terror attack on a hub-port or a cruise liner would cause widespread fears sufficient to disrupt maritime commerce.

In such a scenario, vessels will be forced to take alternate straits, Sunda or Lombok Makassar, increasing their sailing distance by at least three more days, he said. It will also lead to a steep surge in insurance and freight rates.

"The global economic impact from this or the closure of one of the hub ports would be disastrous for global economy due to disruptions to inventory and production cycles," he warned.

Takashi Ichioka, managing director of Japan's Nippon Maritime Center, said security in the strait needed to be bolstered.

"Rampant violence and kidnapping of seafarers are still constant worry to Japan," he said in his paper. "It is time to create a new framework for cooperation in which both the littoral states and users will join."

Abdul Rahim Hussin, Malaysia's maritime security policy director, said the three states spent US$1 billion (euro833 million) between 1984 and 1997 to develop strait infrastructure such as buoys, lighthouses and radars.

He said the three nations and the International Maritime Organization would hold a conference in Kuala Lumpur from Sept.18-20 to discuss security.

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Kenyan court convicts US-seized Somalis of piracy

MOMBASA, Kenya, Oct 26, 2006 (AFP) - A Kenyan court on Thursday convicted 10 Somali men of piracy, capping a landmark eight-month trial that began shortly after their January capture from a hijacked vessel by the US navy.

The 10 had protested their innocence and claimed to be simple fisherman but the judge hearing the case in Kenya's Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa, said she had no doubt the men had illegally seized the Indian-owned dhow.

"After considering the evidence, there is no case of mistaken identity," Magistrate Beatrice Jaden said in her verdict. "The suspects were positively identified.

"Piracy is a maritime offense and it is an offense against mankind," she said. "It is on this basis that I have found the accused guilty."

Jaden set sentencing for November 1 and the men could face life in prison.

They had been charged with unlawfully detaining the ship, the Safina Al Bisaraat, threatening the lives of its 16-member crew and demanding a ransom of 50,000 dollars (42,000 euros) for their release.

In addition to denying the charges, they had also argued that Kenya lacked jurisdiction to try them because the men were seized by US sailors in international waters, a claim Jaden had rejected in August.

They were seized by the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, attached to the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, on January 21 about 55 miles (85 kilometers) off the Somali coast a day after allegedly using the captured dhow to stage an unsuccessful hijack of another merchant ship.

When their trial opened in February, the crew of the dhow testified that the men armed with automatic weapons and grenade launchers had continuously "tortured" them with beatings and threats after seizing the ship on January 16.

In a bid to attract rescuers, the crew wrote messages on planks of wood -- one saying "help" -- as the destroyer moved near.

The pirates threw some of their weapons and the signs overboard, the crew said.

Their capture came amid a surge in hijackings and attacks on commercial shipping, including one on a luxury US cruise liner, off the Somali coast, that prompted dire warnings from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

The situation along the unpatrolled 3,700-kilometer (2,300-mile) Somali coast led Somalia's weak transitional government to appeal for international assistance to curb the attacks.

But piracy has ebbed since a powerful Islamist movement seized control of Mogadishu in June and then took several other Somali ports, including one known to be a pirate haven, implementing strict Sharia law.

Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre.

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10 Somali pirates sentenced to seven years in prison for hijacking ship
1 November 2006

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) - Ten Somali pirates who were captured by the U.S. Navy after hijacking a ship off their country's lawless coast were sentenced Wednesday to seven years in prison each.

The men, who were convicted Oct. 26 of hijacking, could have received life sentences for seizing the Indian-based vessel, the Safina Al Bisaarat, in January. Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which has no effective government of its own to respond. The Horn of African nation has been in chaos since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991 and turned on each other.

Defense attorney Hassan Abdi said he would appeal the sentences. The suspects said during their trial that they were stranded fishermen who had been abducted from their boat.

U.S. sailors, who are part of an anti-terrorism task force based in Djibouti, detained the pirates on Jan. 22 in an operation involving U.S. military helicopters and a warship that fired several warning shots. They were handed over to Kenyan authorities on Jan. 29 and the trial was held at the main courthouse in Mombasa.

The U.S. Navy had been responding to a hijacking report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur. They began tracking the Safina, and captive crew members displayed signs indicating a radio frequency they would use to communicate.

Another sign had the word "help" written on it.

The ship's Indian captain told the U.S. sailors that his vessel had been hijacked two days after leaving the Somali port of Kismayo en route to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The pirates were armed with pistols, assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades.

During the trial, which began in February, Capt. Akbar Ali Suleiman said they had tried to outrun two speedboats used by the pirates. He said once the pirates boarded the vessel they beat up sailors and demanded money. The sailors were held captive for six days before being rescued.

U.S. sailors who searched the ship found an AK-47 assault rifle but the pirates threw most of their weapons into the sea when they spotted a U.S. Navy ship.

Days earlier the pirates tried to seize the MV Delta Ranger, a bulk carrier sailing under the flag of the Bahamas, 320 kilometers (200 miles) off the eastern coast of Somalia.

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Islamic fighters storm and recapture hijacked ship from Somali pirates
8 November 2006

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Islamic fighters stormed a hijacked ship and recaptured it after a gun battle with pirates off Somalia's lawless coast, officials said Wednesday.

Two Somali pirates were seriously wounded during the attack on the commercial vessel, but all 14 crew members were safe, said Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program.

About 30 Islamic fighters stormed the ship late Tuesday, arriving aboard three speedboats and armed with automatic weapons, he said by telephone after Islamic officials in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, informed him of the ship's recovery.

"All the crew are safe and the vessel has been recaptured," Mwangura said.

It is the first rescue of a ship hijacked by pirates since the Islamic movement seized the capital from warlords in June. They have been expanding their control across the south of the country since then. Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohammed Siad Barre and then turned on one another, throwing the country into anarchy.

The ship, which is registered in the United Arab Emirates, was seized last week while heading back to the UAE. It was carrying charcoal.

The pirates had demanded a ransom of $1 million.

The ship will return to Mogadishu but is currently anchored 250 miles north of the capital.

Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, and rose sharply last year, with the number of reported incidents at 35, compared with two in 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

The bandits target both passenger and cargo vessels for ransom or loot. Somalia's 1,860-mile coastline is Africa's longest.

[FallenGuard]

I don't know if this was posted already, but there was this Incident near Somalia where Pirates attacked a Cruise Liner with RPG. The ship used some kind of Sound Cannon to repel them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_range_acoustic_device

Maybe soon it will be like in the old days where Trade Ships were armed to the Teeth with Cannons to defend against Pirates...

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The coast off Somalia is quite lawless, and there have been numerous pirate attacks in recent memory.

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Pirate attack: three nations fight a modern scourge

LANGKAWI, Malaysia, Feb 4, 2007 (AFP) - The alert crackles over walkie-talkies -- a cargo ship has been attacked by pirates, crew members have been taken hostage and two others are drifting at sea in a lifeboat.

In calm seas and under clear blue skies, marine security forces from Japan, Malaysia and Thailand swing into action, launching a dramatic rescue operation involving patrol boats and helicopters.

Only this time, it's an exercise, the first combining the three nations in the notoriously piracy-prone Malacca Strait, one of the world's most important waterways and Southeast Asia's equivalent of the Panama Canal.

With nearly all of the oil powering its economy travelling through the Strait, Japan has said it is willing to help guard the waterway and has stepped up aid to fight piracy on the high seas.

The Japanese Coast Guard's patrol vessel "Yashima" played the role of the "Juliet", a hijacked Japanese cargo ship, and steamed north from Malaysia's resort island of Langkawi into Thai waters for the exercise last Friday.

A Malaysian policeman in pirate rig -- khaki trousers, a green paisley shirt and matching bandana -- lounged on the Yashima's decks waiting for his turn in the exercise off Thailand's Phuket island.

"He is the chief of pirates," joked a fellow Malaysian police officer.

Despite the smiles, officials were anxious to see how well the three countries coordinated efforts to deal with attacks, working across language barriers and different operating styles.

Deputy superintendent of a Malaysian special operations squadron, Abdul Razak Mohamad Yusof, was watching keenly to see how his commandos performed.

"How fast they can board the ship from a helicopter and how vigorously they move clearing the deck looking for perpetrators, how do they perform the searching, the clearance. And how they neutralise the enemy," he said.

After receiving the alert over the walkie-talkie, a Thai patrol boat sped to rescue the two crew members, throwing a tow rope to their life raft and hauling them on board.

Marine police from Thailand and Malaysia and the Japan Coast Guard then prepared to chase pirates who were making a getaway, and board the stricken "Juliet" to arrest two remaining pirates who had taken the crew hostage.

In a movie-style climax to the three-hour exercise, Malaysian special forces commandos rappelled from a helicopter onto the bow of the Yashima, backed by rocket sound effects and pea-green smoke.

Two pirates were chased around the ship by the commandos and other masked Malaysian police before a shootout.

The sullen "pirates" were forced to the ground, their guns kicked away and their wrists cuffed -- although one commando struggled to quickly fix plastic handties onto a pirate.

The exercise was part of Japan's efforts to boost cooperation with Southeast Asian countries around the Malacca Strait, which is bounded by the littoral states of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Ships from Europe, the Middle East and Asia carrying about one-third of global trade pass through the waterway annually, while some 11 million barrels of oil pass through it daily.

But the Strait is notoriously prone to attacks from pirates looking for money, equipment and valuable cargo.

In one incident in July last year, pirates attacked an Indonesian-flagged vessel chartered by the United Nations carrying tsunami relief cargo to northern Sumatra, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

Over a five-year period from 2002 to 2006, pirate attacks reached their peak when 38 were recorded in 2004, and governments and analysts have warned terrorists could also use the narrow sea lane to launch strikes.

Littoral states have substantially increased sea and air patrols in recent years, pumping in resources to curb the scourge in efforts which lead to a decline in attacks to 12 in 2005, and then 11 in 2006, according to the IMB.

But lingering anxiety over its safety have translated into offers of security assistance not only from Japan, but from Australia, Britain, China, New Zealand and the United States.

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China's Pirates Boast Colorful History
By MIN LEE
14 February 2007

HONG KONG (AP) - While Western pirates are a familiar feature of Hollywood movies, Disney is introducing a Chinese sea bandit in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."

Capt. Sao Feng -- played by Chow Yun-fat -- is a key figure in saving Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from the world of the dead in the third installment of the megahit movie series, due out May 25.

Production photos show him with a bald head, long nails and long, thin mustache. He's wearing several layers of dark green armor and a jade ring on his pinky finger.

Sao Feng is fictional, of course.

But what were real Chinese pirates like?

They wore bright silk costumes and ate the hearts of their enemies to strike fear in their subjects, historians say. In some parts of China, they overwhelmed the navy and served as a de facto government, regulating trade and collecting taxes.

Much of the heritage of Chinese pirates traces back to Hong Kong. Lantau island, where modern jetliners take off today at Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok airport, was the site of a major battle between pirates and the imperial Chinese navy in 1809.

The city was such a pirate stronghold that navigational charts of that era referred to the Hong Kong group of islands as "Ladrones" -- Portuguese for robbers.

The outlying island of Cheung Chau has an idyllic fishing village -- and a famous legend, the great pirate Zhang Baozai.

While Zhang is believed to have operated in Hong Kong waters, no evidence suggests he was ever based in Cheung Chau. But that hasn't stopped the legend from growing.

Tucked under a pile of large rocks along the southern coastline of Cheung Chau is a narrow passageway mythically believed to be one of Zhang's lairs. It's one of the island's major tourist attractions.

Zhang's legend is enhanced by his colorful personal life. As a youngster, he was adopted by the pirate Zheng Yi and his wife Zheng Yisao and became his stepfather's boy lover. After Zheng Yi's death, Zhang married his stepmother and had a child with her.

Zhang was said to have been tall and charismatic, according to research by the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. The museum's director, Stephen Davies, said Zhang was known to wear flamboyant purple or red silk gowns.

Rank-and-file pirates dressed in duller colors faded by sunlight and washing and stained with tar, blood and waterproofing tung oil, according to Davies. A 19th century scroll depicting the 1809 battle off Lantau island shows pirates wearing loose blue frocks and white pants with blue socks pulled up to knee level.

Zhang was religious, always worshipping the gods before taking action, and was keenly interested in Western weaponry.

Pirates from Zhang's era fought with swords, pole guns and pike heads.

The average Chinese pirate ship was smaller and not as well armed as its Western counterparts, historians say. They were mainly seized junks averaging about 40 feet long, with smaller junks deployed to navigate inland creeks.

The junks carried fewer cannons than in the West because less-sophisticated Chinese ship building technology limited the vessels' ability to handle ammunition recoil.

But battleships from the imperial government -- often converted rice transport ships -- were even smaller and more poorly armed.

Zhang's fleet crushed the Chinese navy, more than halving its fleet from 165 ships to 72 in two battles in 1808 and 1809.

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Pirates hijack UN-chartered ship near Somalia

MOGADISHU, Feb 25, 2007 (AFP) - Pirates hijacked a UN-chartered freighter off the coast of northeastern Somalia Sunday after the ship delivered food aid to the stricken nation.

It was the first time pirates hijacked a boat near Somalia since Ethiopian troops helped government fighters oust a powerful Islamist movement from Mogadishu late last year.

The incident has stoked fears of a new surge in once-rampant piracy.

The freighter, MV Rozen, was seized after delivering 1,800 tonnes of food aid to the towns of Bosasso and Berbera in the Somali region of Puntland, UN World Food Programme spokeswoman Stephanie Savariaud told AFP. The vessel was headed to to its home port in Mombasa, Kenya.

"It was hijacked this morning at about 9:30 am (0630 GMT) ... near the town of Bargal," she said, days after Kenyan officials warned of a possible resurgence of piracy off the Horn of Africa.

"As it was heading home, the heavily-armed pirates emerged from a motorboat, they jumped in the ship and seized it," Andrew Mwangura, of the international Seafarers Assistance Programme told AFP.

"The captain managed to communicate somehow to Sri Lanka. Then the message was sent to Mombasa before the gunmen cut off communications."

The identity of the pirates remains unknown, but such attacks in the past been blamed on a well organised cartel of Somalis who usually use speed boats mounted with machine guns.

An official from the Motaku Shipping Company that chartered the boat confirmed from Bosasu that it had been hijacked off the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

He said the ship was carrying a flag from the Caribbean islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

"We are not sure where the ship is right now," Abdulaziz Mohamed Hamud told AFP by telephone.

The vessel had 12 crew members -- six Sri Lankans, including the captain, and six Kenyans.

"I do not know what I will tell the relatives of the crew when they start camping outside my office tomorrow," Motaku company manager Karim Kudrath told AFP by telephone from the head office in Mombasa.

Kudrath said it was the fourth time one of the company's ships had been hijacked off Somalia.

The MV Rozen itself narrowly escaped an attempted hijack off Somalia last March after another UN humanitarian delivery.

"We are the only shipping company that has agreed to take food to Somalia," Kudrath said.

"I am very doubtful if we will continue to offer our services to Somalia. It is getting very difficult for us."

WFP warned that such acts of piracy would undermine the delivery of relief food to Somalia and further aggravate the desperate humanitarian situation there.

"This is an indication that piracy has returned to Somalia," Mwangura said.

Waters off the unpatrolled 3,700-kilometer (2,300-mile) Somali coastline saw scores of pirate attacks between March 2005 and June last year, when Islamists seized Mogadishu and then moved into much of southern and central Somalia.

Earlier this month, Kenyan maritime officials monitoring the pirate-infested east African coast said raiders had returned to the Somali settlement of Haradere, about 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of Mogadishu, after briefly scattering in the face of Islamist rule.

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Six suspected Somali pirates arrested after hijacking U.N. food aid ship, U.N. says
27 February 2007

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Somali authorities have arrested six suspected pirates in the hijacking of a U.N.-chartered cargo ship delivering food aid, officials said Tuesday.

Four heavily-armed pirates still had control of the vessel and were holding 12 crew members hostage, said the U.N food agency. The ship, the MV Rozen, had been contracted to deliver aid to Somalia, where around 1 million people are suffering from a drought that hit the region last year.

Four suspects were seized after they went ashore to buy supplies, Peter Goossens, the head of the World Food Program in Somalia, said in a statement. Sa'id Mohamed Raage, the regional fishing minister, said police arrested two others separately.

"The arrest is welcome news, but the safe release of the crew and the vessel remains our chief concern," Goossens said. "We very much hope this ordeal will finish soon."

The pirates are armed with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, said Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program, an independent group that monitors piracy in the region.

"Negotiations are under way to try and secure the release of the vessel," he added. The condition of the six Sri Lankan and six Kenyan crew members was unknown.

The ship had just delivered about 1,900 tons of food when it was seized Sunday. It has been anchored six miles off the coast of the semiautonomous Puntland region in northeastern Somalia, near Bargal.

Last March, the same ship managed to escape an attempted hijacking by five pirates. Motaku Shipping, the owner of the MV Rozen, has had all four of its ships seized by pirates in the last two years, according to a report in The Shipping Times.

Three Somali police speedboats were surrounding the MV Rozen and a U.S. military vessel was patrolling the area Tuesday to monitor the situation.

"We are appealing for the safe return of the crew and the vessel as soon as possible, and for people to respect the need for humanitarian delivery corridors," Goossens said. "Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world, and there are families whose lives depend on our ability to get food aid through."

Somali pirates are trained fighters, often dressed in military fatigues, using speedboats equipped with satellite phones and Global Positioning System equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades, according to the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia.

The bandits target passenger, cargo and fishing vessels for ransom or loot.

The 1,860-mile coast of Somalia, which has had no effective government since warlords ousted a dictatorship in 1991 and then turned on each other, has become extremely dangerous for ships.

In southern Somalia, fisherman Mohamed Abdi said U.S. Marine or Navy officers took fishermen from eight boats to their ship about 500 miles off the coast to question them about ties to the pirates and Somalia's Islamic movement that was ousted in December.

"We urge government officials to plead our case to the U.S. government because the interruption affects our earnings. We use boats for fishing, but not for other illegal purposes. We are not sea pirates and we are not sympathizers of terrorists," Abdi said by phone from Marka, a port 56 miles southwest of Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

Fishing Marine Resources Minister Hassan Abshir Farah said the U.S. officials' actions were acceptable because Somalia does not have its own coast guard and its coastline "has been considered one of the worst waters in the world."

----

Associated Press writers Salad Duhul and Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu, Somalia, contributed to this report.

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Pirates hijack ship off Somali coast
By ANITA POWELL, Associated Press Writer
Tue Apr 3, 6:33 AM ET

Somali pirates armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades have hijacked a cargo ship as it was preparing to dock at Mogadishu port, officials said Tuesday.

The vessel, the MV Nimatullah, was delivering nearly 900 tons of cargo when about 10 pirates in a speedboat overpowered the 14-member crew early Monday, said Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program.

"The crew told us by telephone that they had been hijacked by Somali pirates," said Hussein Ali Jillow, a Somali businessman who hired the cargo ship. "The crew did not say anything about their conditions."

No ransom has been demanded, Mwangura added.

In February, Somali pirates seized a U.N. chartered vessel that had just delivered food aid in northeastern Somalia. The 12 crew still remain hostage.

The 1,860 mile-coast of Somalia, which has had no effective government since warlords ousted a dictatorship in 1991 and then turned on each other, has emerged as one of the most dangerous areas for ships.

Somali pirates are trained fighters, often dressed in military fatigues, using speedboats equipped with satellite phones and Global Positioning System equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades, according to the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia.

In 2005, two ships carrying U.N. World Food Program aid were overwhelmed by pirates. The number of overall reported at-sea hijackings that year was 35, compared with two in 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

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Piracy in Southeast Asian seas dropped in 1st quarter of 2007, study shows
17 April 2007

SINGAPORE (AP) - Pirate attacks in Southeast Asian sea lanes fell to their lowest level in five years in the first quarter of 2007 due to increased patrols and other anti-piracy measures, according to a report by Singapore researchers.

So far this year, there have been 10 reported armed robberies and other piracy attacks and two attempted attacks, said the report, released this week by Nanyang Technological University researchers.

"These figures continue to suggest that the overall number of attacks in the region appears to be trending downward,' said the report.

It also noted a decrease in violence, with only one of the reported cases involving firearms. Unlike the first quarters of the last five years, there were no ship hijackings or kidnaps for ransom.

More than half of the attacks took place in Indonesian ports and anchorages, and the others in the Malacca Strait and the territorial waters of Vietnam and Malaysia, said the report, the second on regional piracy by NTU.

Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore began coordinating their sea patrols of the narrow Malacca Strait -- through which half the world's oil trade and a third of global commerce pass -- in July 2004 and started air patrols in 2005.

Frequent attacks in the Malacca Strait had caused leading international shipping insurer Lloyd's to give the waterway a "war-risk" rating in 2005. That designation was lifted last August, with the insurer saying security had improved due to long-term security measures.

Jane Chan, an associate research fellow at NTU, that the figures for the study were compiled from weekly updates issued by London's International Maritime Bureau and newspaper reports.

Chan's co-authors were Lt. Col. Joshua Ho, a Singapore Navy officer and senior fellow at NTU's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

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Seafarers warned to be on alert in Malacca Strait

KUALA LUMPUR, April 22, 2007 (AFP) - The International Maritime Bureau on Sunday warned seafarers to remain on alert while travelling on the piracy-prone Malacca Strait despite a fall in attacks.

Pottengal Mukundan, London-based director of IMB, told AFP that there was "no room for complacency," since pirates were merely lying low due to aggressive patrols by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Mukundan said if the three Southeast Asian countries that border the Malacca Strait let up in their patrols, "pirate attacks will rise again."

Maintaining and securing the waterway has always been regarded as the responsibility of the littoral states that border the sea lane -- Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

The three Southeast Asian countries have implemented several security measures, including coordinated air and sea patrols, to secure the Malacca Strait, one of the world's most important and busiest waterways.

Mukundan said the IMB welcomed any move by the littoral states to upgrade security in the strait, including joint patrols.

"It will be a great step forward to improve security in the strait. It will be a great help to the industry," he said.

Malaysia recently said it was ready to study ways to boost security in the Malacca Strait, including conducting sensitive joint maritime patrols with Indonesia and Singapore.

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said there were "regional sensitivities" to overcome -- joint patrols could allow warships from one country to enter another's territorial waters -- but flagged Malaysia could warm to the plan.

More than 30 percent of world trade passes through the strait, and the volume of traffic has increased dramatically, with more than 62,600 ships using the strait in 2005, up 42 percent from 44,000 ships in 1999.

Half of the world's oil shipments travel through the waterway.

Mukundan said a new problem posing a risk to seafarers was the rise in incidents of hostage-taking and kidnapping.

"It is a worrying trend, especially in Somalia and Nigeria," he said, referring to incidents in the first three months of 2007. He declined to elaborate.

The IMB will release its first quarter piracy report on Tuesday.

Mukundan said last year 263 crew were taken hostage or kidnapped worldwide, adding that three people had not been recovered, "believed to be killed."

In June, maritime experts and enforcement agencies will gather in Malaysia to discuss new challenges to seafarers worldwide at an event organised by the IMB and a local law enforcement agency.

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Pirates attack British ship off West African coast
14 May 2007

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) - Machete-wielding pirates boarded a British cargo ship over the weekend, forced its crew to disembark and stole the ship, the vessel's captain said Monday.

A U.N. helicopter saw the 3,500-ton ship being towed away and one person was arrested in connection with the incident, U.N. spokesman Ben Malor said.

Two boats towed the vessel deep into neighboring Ivory Coast's waters, Malor said.

The ship, the MV Tahoma Reefer, ran into engine problems off Liberia's coast and docked in Monrovia, where the crew was awaiting mechanical help, said Volodymr Shteynberh, the ship's captain. Four days after it docked Saturday, two fishing boats approached the cargo ship and around 25 pirates jumped aboard brandishing machetes, Shteynberh said.

The captain said three crew members were injured before the ship was towed away in the direction of Ivory Coast. "Two received cuts on their heads," Shteynberh said.

The ship was carrying several thousand tons of fuel used to power the vessel.

Shteynberh said he was worried that if the fuel spills into the ocean, "it will cause serious ecological problems for the coast and for the region."

The ship was sailing under the flag of the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

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Somali gunmen seize Kenyan fishing vessels

NAIROBI, May 15, 2007 (AFP) - Somali gunmen on Tuesday captured two Kenyan fishing vessels off the Somali coast in one of an increasing number of pirate attacks in the area, a maritime official told AFP.

"The two Kenyan fishing vessels were hijacked today off the Somali coast, about 200 nautical miles from Mogadishu," said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan branch of the international Seafarers Assistance Programme.

He had no further details but added that another ship, the Qatar-flagged MV-IBN Younus, had escaped an attempted attack on Monday.

Three men armed with machine guns and a rocket launcher attacked the boat on Monday afternoon some 180 nautical miles off Mogadishu, Mwangura said.

The boat escaped with some damage to its crew quarters but the crew were safe, he added.

The ship was carrying around 15,000 tonnes of cargo from South Africa to the Gulf states.

The 3,700-kilometer (2,300-mile) Somali coast saw scores of pirate attacks between March 2005 and June last year, but these stopped during six months of strict Islamist rule of south and central Somalia.

Ethiopian-Somali troops ousted the Islamists at the start of the year and recent weeks have seen a resurgence of pirate attacks off the unpatrolled Somali coast.

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Pirates open fire on cargo ship; Malaysian watchdog warns key routes threatened
15 May 2007

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Pirates fired grenade launchers and machine guns at a cargo ship in the Indian Ocean far off the coast of Somalia, sparking concerns that key shipping routes are threatened, a Malaysia-based maritime watchdog said Tuesday.

The Qatar-flagged cargo ship, Ibn Younus, managed to escape during an hour-long chase as it headed from Durban in South Africa to Jebel Ali in Dubai after it was attacked Monday, said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.

Choong said piracy was on the rise again in Somalia with Monday's attack the fifth since April.

Three men in a speed boat, armed with machine guns and grenade launchers, approached the ship and ordered it to stop, he said.

"They started firing with machine guns toward the bridge of the ship. The emergency alarm was raised and the ship took measures to prevent the pirates from boarding," Choong told The Associated Press.

"The pirates then opened fire with the grenade launcher and successfully hit the crew's cabins, causing severe damage," he said.

Choong said the ship took a zigzag course to evade the pirates and managed to escape. The ship's crew was safe and nobody was injured.

The attack -- Somalia's seventh at sea so far this year-- occurred 180 nautical miles off the coast, compared to previous raids that took place close to the shoreline, Choong said.

"We are concerned about this latest attack which happened so far off the coast of Somalia. It appears the old warlords are coming back. This trend is dangerous because it could disrupt shipping routes," Choong said.

Somalia lies close to crucial shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean, where valuable cargo and carriers must pass.

Pirate attacks dropped to 10 last year in anarchy-wracked Somalia, from 35 in 2005, following increased patrols by Western naval ships, including U.S., Dutch and Belgian vessels.

"It has been more than a year since Somali pirates had gone so far out to sea to attack ships. We urge the coalition naval forces to beef up patrols before piracy gets out of hand again," he said.

The bureau has advised ships to stay at least 200 nautical miles off Somalia's coast, he added.

Somalia has had no effective government since 1991, when warlords ousted a dictatorship and then turned on each other. The country's 3,000-kilometer (1,880-mile) coastline makes it difficult to prevent attacks.

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Aid ship refuses to sail to Somalia as U.S. Navy warns vessels to stay clear of lawless coast
21 May 2007

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - A cargo ship carrying food for poor Somalis refused to leave Kenya on Monday because of rampant piracy, and the U.S. Navy warned vessels to stay clear of Somalia's lawless waters where everyone from aid workers to fishermen have become targets.

The U.N. World Food Program has appealed for international action to stamp out Somali pirates threatening the delivery of humanitarian supplies to the Horn of Africa country, which is trying to recover from the worst fighting in more than a decade.

The ship was loaded with 850 tons of food, but the shipping agency contracted by the WFP demanded the Kenyan government provide security for travel into Somali waters. On Saturday, pirates staged a failed hijack attempt on another WFP boat, killing a Somali guard.

"We need some sort of security to ply into Somali waters ... because they (Somali pirates) are everywhere. Now they are ashore, (and) very far off into the sea. It is becoming too much," Inayet Kudrati of the Motaku Shipping Agency said Monday.

A Kenyan government spokesman did not return calls for comment. Peter Smerdon, spokesman for WFP, said he had no comment on the contractor's security arrangements, as long as they were acceptable to Somali and Kenyan authorities.

Saturday's attack on the aid ship was the eighth this year off Somalia's 1,880-mile coast, which is near crucial shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean.

Trained in combat during the anarchy that has gripped Somalia since the 1991 ouster of a dictatorship, the pirates are heavily armed and use speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS devices. The bandits target both passenger and cargo vessels for ransom or loot, using the money to buy weapons.

"Although there are coalition forces operating in the area, they cannot be everywhere monitoring every ship that passes the coast of Somalia," the U.S. Navy's Maritime Liaison Office in Bahrain said in a statement. It urged ships to stay 200 nautical miles off Somalia's coast.

In 2005, two ships carrying WFP aid were overwhelmed by pirates. The number of overall reported at-sea hijackings off Somalia that year was 35, compared with two in 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Piracy is just one of the obstacles to distributing aid to the needy in this nation of 7 million peope.

A U.N.-backed government that has been struggling to exert control since 2004 is battling an Islamic movement that its troops defeated late last year with help from neighboring Ethiopia.

Ethiopian soldiers killed one person and injured another Monday after their convoy was targeted by a land mine in Mogadishu, the capital, witnesses said.

It was the latest in a series of explosions aimed at convoys carrying government officials or troops. The government blames the Islamic guerrillas, who have vowed to wage an Iraq-style insurgency until Somalia is ruled by the Quran.

At the end of April, the government declared victory over insurgents and Somalia's long-standing clan rivals in fighting in Mogadishu that drove about a fifth of the city's 2 million residents to flee. The battles killed at least 1,670 people between March 12 and April 26.

Although the capital is relatively calm now, sporadic bursts of deadly violence still erupt.

In Monday's attack on the Ethiopians' six-vehicle convoy, a land mine detonated in front of the first pickup truck, said one witness, Abdi Ma'alin, who was walking nearby.

"The explosion was so huge that it sent volumes of smoke into the sky," Ma'alin said.

The soldiers opened fire in all directions soon after the blast, and controlled the scene for 15 minutes before they drove away, said another witness, Sahal Sheik, who sells sheep at a small market nearby.

"I saw one civilian body lying on the curb, and another with blood on his shoulder running toward the residential neighborhoods," he said.

On Saturday, a bomb exploded near Mayor Mohamed Dheere's convoy, killing at least two civilians but missing Dheere. A bomb attack Thursday targeted the prime minister's convoy, but no one was hurt.

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Associated Press writers Tom Maliti and Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.

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Indonesia wants help to secure waterway

SINGAPORE, June 3, 2007 (AFP) - Indonesia's defence minister called on Japan, China and South Korea on Sunday to help his cash-strapped nation secure the vital Malacca Straits, the busiest sea lane in the world.

Juwono Sudarsono asked the three nations, East Asia's wealthiest economies, to provide technical assistance for the Straits, which handles 40 percent of global trade and half of all oil shipments worldwide.

"What we lack in Indonesia is effective capacity to deploy resources, equipment, ships," he said at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security conference.

"We would like to appeal to China, Japan and South Korea to provide the technical assistance on an ASEAN-wide basis as well as on a bilateral basis to the littoral states," he said.

ASEAN is the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Indonesia had a huge responsibility to secure the sea lanes in the Malacca Straits because of its size and strategic location but did not have the financial means to do it all alone, said Sudarsono.

Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have implemented coordinated air patrols in the Straits but Jakarta faced limits on what it could do, he said.

"There is tremendous responsibility," he said. "But I am facing tremendous problems."

If Indonesia allocated more for its defence needs, it would mean less funding for the country's social and economic programmes like building more schools and hospitals, said Sudarsono.

Indonesia's defence budget is less than one percent of the country's annual gross domestic product of 400 billion US dollars, which translates into 3.2 billion dollars a year.

In comparison, Singapore, which has one of Asia's most modern armed forces, will increase its defence budget by 5.3 percent this year to an estimated 6.87 billion US dollars, according to the national budget.

"So the contrast is very stark," the Indonesian defence minister said, adding that was why the vast archipelago must work with its neighbours.

The prosperity of East Asia and Southeast Asia is heavily dependent on safety in the Malacca Straits, since the passageway accounts for 40 percent of global seaborne trade.

Half of the world's oil shipments also pass through the 960-kilometre (595-mile) Straits, the busiest seaway in the world. It links the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and also passes Malaysia and Singapore.

"It's very important for us, it's very important for countries in the region and very important for the global economy," said Sudarsono.

He said the United States was still the dominant provider of security in the Asia-Pacific region but Japan and China, because of their economic might, would also want to be involved.

That would come "by enhancing their naval capabilities within Northeast Asia and across Southeast Asia because of the sea lines of communication and the links with energy security to the Gulf area," said Sudarsono.

Singapore Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean said any moves by Japan and China to extend their naval reach in the Malacca Straits, through which more than 70 percent of their oil imports passes, must be in line with international law.

"Japan and China are extending and strnegthening their maritime reach, to have a greater direct ability to influence the security of the sea routes through which their energy supplies pass," said Teo.

"While this is to be expected, countries in the region also expect that this should be done in a way which is constructive, and which is consistent with international law."

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Global watchdog's new security hot line to boost war against maritime terrorism
1 August 2007

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - A global maritime watchdog agency on Wednesday opened a 24-hour communication hot line where callers can anonymously relay information on sea piracy, crime and terrorism.

The hot line, run by the London-based International Maritime Bureau's piracy center in Kuala Lumpur, includes phone, fax, telex and e-mail, said the center's chief, Noel Choong.

"It is a good concept. Shipyard workers or ship crew may know something but most are reluctant to report to the police or to the ship owner because they are afraid of being detained or of losing their job," Choong told The Associated Press.

"Now we are giving them an option to report to us. It will be a big boost to fighting crime and terrorism at sea," he said.

He said the center hopes the hot line will garner information on a range of criminal activities at sea including drug smuggling.

The IMB will assess the reliability of the information before passing it to law enforcement agencies in the countries concerned, who will have to verify if the threat is real, he said.

The IMB issued a notice Wednesday to alert seafarers, port workers, shipping agents, shipyards, brokers and stevedores worldwide of the hot line, Choong said.

"All information received will be treated in strict confidence," the notice said. "With your help, we can try to minimize the risks and help save lives and properties."

The IMB has warned that piracy could be on the rise after attacks increased sharply worldwide in the second quarter this year to 85 from 66 in the same period a year earlier, and compared to only 41 in the previous quarter.

The industry is also concerned about the threat of maritime terrorism, especially in the Malacca Strait which carries half the world's oil trade and a third of global commerce.

Pirate attacks in the waterway have declined in the past three years after Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore introduced coordinated security patrols, but concerns still linger that militants could hijack a ship carrying hazardous material and use it as a floating bomb.

Some 200 ships use the straits every day to travel from Europe and the Middle East to Asia.

The hot line telephone number is +603-20310014, the fax number is +603-20785769 and the e-mail address is imbsecurity@icc-ccs.org. The telex number is MA34199 IMBPCI.

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Watchdog urges swift action against pirates in Malacca Strait

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - An international maritime watchdog on Wednesday urged authorities to move swiftly to prevent another spate of pirate attacks in the Malacca Strait following a kidnapping this week.

On Monday, 10 heavily armed pirates boarded a barge carrying steel billets from Malaysia's northern Penang state and seized the ship master and engineer, said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur.

The gunmen left six other crew members unharmed, but destroyed the barge's communication system before fleeing.

The attack is the third in the waterway this year, but the first time since July 2005 that crew members have been kidnapped, Choong said.

"We urge the ... authorities to take quick action to immediately contain this problem. We are concerned that it would be the start of another series of kidnappings in the area," Choong told AFP.

He said that if unchecked, the situation had the potential to deteriorate into something similar to Somalia, where pirates frequently board and hijack ships on the long unpatrolled coastline.

More than 30 percent of world trade and half of the world's oil shipments pass through the Malacca Strait, which is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

The kidnappers were suspected to be Indonesians, sources said, but wished to remain anonymous.

Experts say Indonesia is the weak link in fighting piracy in the strait, amid international concern that the waterway could be used for terrorist attacks.

Malaysian police in June warned that there was a "real and possible" threat of terrorism in the area. It also vowed greater maritime cooperation with Indonesia in patrolling the waterway.

The stretch has been prone to piracy in the past, but international pressure has led to a more concerted effort at joint patrols.

Pirate attacks have dropped in the past three years as a result, Choong said.

Owners of the vessel boarded on Monday are now trying to establish contact with the pirates to secure the release of the kidnapped men, he added.

"Mostly likely they will demand ransom. They had no interest in the vessel and its cargo," Choong said, adding that the barge and its remaining crew were taken by authorities to a nearby port in Belawan, Indonesia.

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Danish ship owner paid ransom to Somali pirates to release crew of hijacked ship
23 August 2007

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - The owner of a Danish cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates paid a ransom to have the vessel and its five-man crew released after more than 80 days in captivity, a Foreign Ministry official said Thursday.

The Danica White had been on its way from Dubai to the Kenyan port of Mombasa when it was seized by Somali pirates June 1.

The ransom was paid Aug. 12, 10 days before the ship and its Danish crew were handed over to a French warship, said Lars Thuesen, head of the Danish Foreign Ministry's consular department.

He said "the ship owner and those who have financial interests in the ship and its cargo" paid to secure the crew's release, but declined to say how much.

The pirates had demanded US$1.5 million (euro1.1 million).

Danish shipping company H. Folmer & Co., which owns the Danica White, declined to give any details about the negotiations with the pirates.

"If we give details other Danish sailors risk being exposed to new hijacking," the company told the Berlingske Tidende newspaper.

Hans Tino Hansen, of the Danish security company Protocol, who had commented on the hijacking in Danish media, denied any involvement in the negotiations.

Thuesen said the five crew members were not hurt physically during their 83-day ordeal, but said that captivity had been stressful psychologically.

He didn't reveal details of the handover, but said a French navy ship was involved.

The French are part of an international naval task force that has been combatting Somalia-based pirates who have been hijacking ships near the Arabian Peninsula.

The pirates are trained fighters, often dressed in military fatigues and using speedboats equipped with satellite phones and Global Positioning System technology. They target passenger and cargo vessels for ransom or loot, and use the money to buy weapons.

On Thursday, the Danica White was being escorted by French warship Commandant Blaison to Djibouti, on the horn of Africa, where it was expected to arrive this weekend, Thuesen said.

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Pirates release 2 kidnapped in Malacca Strait after ransom is paid
27 August 2007

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Pirates have released two Indonesian crew members after a ransom was paid, a global maritime watchdog said Monday.

Gun-toting pirates attacked a Malaysian barge on Aug. 13 and abducted the ship master and chief engineer, both Indonesian.

The barge was carrying steel billets from Malaysia's northern state of Penang to Belawan in Indonesia when it was raided in the Malacca Strait.

It marked the third pirate attack in the busy waterway this year but the first since July 2005 in which ship crew were kidnapped.

Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, said the two were freed early Friday after a ransom was paid.

"We hope the Indonesian authorities will take swift action to detain the culprits to show they are serious in dealing with this problem," Choong told The Associated Press.

He also urged Indonesia to increase patrols in its waters to ensure that such kidnap and ransom cases, which were rampant before July 2005, would not become widespread again.

The strait is notorious for robberies and hijackings but the number of attacks has fallen since Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore -- which share the waterway -- launched coordinated maritime and air patrols in recent years to curb piracy.

Some 65,000 vessels pass through the Malacca Strait each year, carrying half the world's oil and more than a third of its commerce.

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"Historic" cooperation reached on Malacca Straits safety

SINGAPORE, Sept 4, 2007 (AFP) - Southeast Asian nations have agreed to an "historic" cooperation mechanism to help improve safety in waterways which are vital to world trade, officials said Tuesday.

Delegates from Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia began three days of meetings to launch the new "Cooperative Mechanism" to enhance the safety of navigation and environmental protection in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore.

One-third of the world's trade and half of the world's oil supply are carried through the Straits by about 90,000 vessels each year, said a document presented to the meeting.

"The importance of this meeting lies in the fact that it launches a new framework for cooperation in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore," said Efthimios Mitropoulos, Secretary General of the International Maritime Organisation, a specialised United Nations agency.

"I view the Mechanism as an historic breakthrough of great significance," he said in a speech.

He told AFP the Mechanism "is the institutionalisation of the need to do something to ensure safe passage, safe and uninterrupted passage, through the Straits in all circumstances, in view of the tremendous significance, the strategic significance, of the Straits to seaborne trade and the world economy at large."

The cooperative framework aims to promote dialogue between the littoral states, users and other stakeholders, as well as coordination in implementing projects to promote safety of navigation and environmental protection.

Users of the Straits, the shipping industry, and others would be able to contribute financially or provide other assistance to the projects, the framework said.

In his speech, Mitropoulos said that with an increasing volume of shipping, it may not be fair for coastal states alone to bear the cost of providing adequate navigation aids.

"The time may, therefore, have come for all parties who benefit from the existence of a safe infrastructure in the Straits to reflect seriously on their collective social responsibilities and to find ways and means, possibly through voluntary contributions, to discharge their relevant social obligations."

Mitropoulos said the littoral states have identified six safety projects, two of which already have sponsors. China has undertaken to replace navigation aids damaged by a December, 2004 tsunami which devastated the region, he said, while China and the United States are working on preparednesss for hazardous material spills.

Funds will have to be secured for the other four projects, including a top-priority project to remove wrecks which pose a hazard, he said.

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Piracy Off Somalia, Nigeria Increases
16 October 2007

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Pirate attacks worldwide jumped 14 percent in the first nine months of 2007, with the biggest increases off the poorly policed waters of Somalia and Nigeria, an international watchdog reported Tuesday.

Reported attacks in Somalia rose rapidly to 26 up from eight a year earlier, the London-based International Maritime Bureau said through its piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And some of those hijackings have turned deadly.

"The seafaring industry is very concerned about this," said Cyrus Mody, a senior analyst with IMB. "There is absolutely no regard for law in that area. Not only is it not good for business in Africa, but it blocks humanitarian aid and is bad for the general stability of the continent."

The political instability in Somalia gave pirates "totally free rein without any sort of deterrence from the law," Mody said. "They've got a free hand right now."

Somalia has had 16 years of violence and anarchy, and is now led by a government battling to establish authority even in the capital. Its coasts are virtually unpoliced.

Piracy off Somalia increased this year after Ethiopian forces backing Somali government troops ousted an Islamic militia in December, said Andrew Mwangura, program coordinator of the Seafarers Assistance Program which independently monitors piracy in the region.

During the six months that the Council of Islamic Courts ruled most of southern Somalia, where Somali pirates are based, piracy abated, Mwangura said.

At one point, the Islamic group said it was sending scores of fighters to crack down on pirates there. Islamic fighters even stormed a hijacked, UAE-registered ship and recaptured it after a gunbattle in which pirates -- but no crew members -- were reportedly wounded.

In May, pirates complaining their demands had not been met killed a crew member a month after seizing a Taiwan-flagged fishing vessel off Somalia's northeastern coast.

Pirates even targeted vessels on humanitarian missions, such as the MV Rozen which was hijacked in February soon after it had delivered food aid to northeastern Somalia. The ship and its crew were released in April, but the World Food Program has since relied on more expensive air deliveries for Somalia.

Mwangura told The Associated Press that "some elements" in the Somali transitional federal government and some businessmen in Puntland, a northeastern Somalia region, are involved because "piracy is a lucrative business."

Somali government officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

IMB director Pottengal Mukundan urged ships to stay as far away as possible from the coasts of Somalia and Nigeria.

"The level of violence in high-risk areas remain unacceptable. Pirates in Somalia are operating with impunity, seizing vessels hundreds of miles off the coast and holding the vessel and crew to ransom, making no attempt to hide their activity," he said.

Indonesia remained the world's worst piracy hotspot, with 37 attacks in the first nine months of 2007. But that was an improvement from 40 in the same period a year earlier, IMB said.

Stephen Morrison, Director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said much piracy is linked to weak law of the sea and weak legal institutions.

"The pirates go out and hit ships with food relief cargo, they hit tourist liners," Morrison said. "There's a lawless environment with weak states and a weak institution. When there's opportunity, motivation and means, that's where there are clusters of piracy."

Oil-rich Nigeria suffered 26 pirate attacks so far this year, up from nine in the same period last year.

A Nigerian navy spokesman, Capt. Henry Babalola, said criminals are now targeting the most vulnerable vessels -- shipping trawlers -- because authorities have cracked down on crude oil theft. The pirates also seize valuable communications gear.

Mwangura said hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom have been paid to secure the release of vessels hijacked this year and part of the money is, "paid through bank accounts of individuals in (Kenyan cities) Nairobi and Mombasa."

The IMB said Southeast Asia's Malacca Strait, one of the world's busiest waterways, has been relatively quiet with 198 attacks on ships reported between January and September, up from 174 in the same period in 2006.

It said 15 vessels were hijacked, 63 crew members kidnapped and three killed.

Joint efforts by Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have kept piracy under control in the Malacca Strait, Mody said. Those states had poured a considerate amount of additional resources into fighting piracy since last year, including increased patrolling and law enforcement on the water.

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Associated Press writers Dulue Mbachu in Lagos, Nigeria, Lily Hindy and Carley Petesch in New York contributed to this report.

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Somali pirates seize cargo ship off east African coast in spate of high-seas attacks
22 October 2007

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Somali pirates seized a cargo ship off the east African coast -- one in a series of high-seas attacks in the last week alone, officials said Monday.

Gunmen hijacked the ship last Wednesday, said Andrew Mwangura, the program coordinator of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Program. He did not know the number or nationalities of the crew on board.

Two other ships were attacked off the Somali coast on Saturday, with pirates firing on one of the boats, he said. And on Sunday, pirates in two speedboats attempted to seize a ship carrying cargo for the World Food Program -- the third attack on a WFP ship this year, said Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for the U.N. program.

Not counting the attacks of the past week, Somalia has had 26 reported hijackings this year -- compared to eight by this time last year, the International Maritime Bureau said.

Some hijackings have turned deadly: Pirates killed a crew member after seizing a Taiwan-flagged fishing vessel in May off the northeastern coast of Somalia.

The Almarjan, seized last Wednesday, was flying under a Comoros Island flag and was operated by Dubai-based Biyat International, Mwangura said. The incident took several days to confirm, he said Monday.

Mwangura said the rise in hijackings could be linked to the overthrow of an Islamic group that had cracked down on piracy after seizing control of the Somali capital and much of southern Somalia last year.

Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, has been wracked by violence between the Islamic insurgents and government troops and their Ethiopian allies.

The country's coasts are virtually unpoliced, and the shaky, U.N.-backed transitional government comes under daily attack by insurgents.

In the latest attack in Mogadishu, two civilians and an unknown number of soldiers were killed after a truck full of soldiers exploded, witness Ali Mohamed said.

Government officials were not immeadiately available for comment.

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Associated Press Writer Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu, Somalia, contributed to this report.

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Piracy On the Rise
29 October 2007
Traffic World

Piracy and armed robbery attacks against ships increased 14 percent in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period in 2006, the International Maritime Bureau said.

The bureau said 198 attacks were reported, compared with 174 attacks in the January-September period of 2006.

A total of 15 vessels were hijacked, 172 crewmembers were taken hostage, 63 were kidnapped and 21 were assaulted.

If this trend continues, the decline in piracy attacks begun in 2004 will have bottomed out, the agency said. Crew assaults, kidnapping and ransom rose dramatically from 2006.

The bureau said there was a slight increase in container ship attacks. Attacks against bulk carriers were down, but attacks on general cargo and tanker vessels increased.

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US warships monitoring hijacked Japanese tanker off Somalia

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 31, 2007 (AFP) - US warships are monitoring a Japanese tanker which was hijacked by pirates last weekend off the coast of Somalia, a piracy watchdog said Wednesday.

"The pirates are still in control of the ship. They are believed to be armed," Noel Choong, the head of the International Maritime Bureau's (IMB's) Malaysia-based Piracy Reporting Centre, told AFP.

The vessel with 23 Korean, Filipino and Myanmar crew sent out a distress call that was relayed to the IMB last Sunday after pirates boarded the ship.

Choong said US warships in the area were observing the tanker which was in Somali territorial waters.

"Yes, coalition warships are monitoring the tanker," he said but declined further comments due to safety and security concerns for the seafarers.

On Tuesday, the US Navy helped the crew of a North Korean cargo vessel regain control of their freighter in a violent struggle after it was captured by pirates off Mogadishu port.

Maritime officials in Nairobi identified the Japanese vessel as the Panama-flagged Golden Mori and said it was seized about eight nautical miles off the Socotra archipelago.

The captain and chief engineer are Koreans, and the remainder of the crew are Filipinos and Myanmar nationals.

Choong said Somali waters were "dangerous to seafarers," and urged ships to keep 200 nautical miles off the coast and to be alert against "small and suspicious boats" that approach their ships.

"In the past two weeks, there has been a lot of attacks against ships off the coast of war-torn Somalia," he said.

There have been 31 attacks with one seafarer killed so far this year compared to 10 attacks and one seafarer killed last year.

The attacks stopped in the second half of 2006 during six months of strict rule by Islamists, who were ousted by Ethiopian and Somali government troops at the end of the year.

Somalia, which lies at the mouth of the Red Sea, has been without an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre sparked a bloody power struggle.

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Pirates Leave Ships Under US Navy Escort
4 November 2007

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Somali pirates left two boats they had hijacked in the waters off the Horn of Africa, and the newly liberated vessels -- and their crew of 24 -- were under U.S. Navy escort on Sunday, the American military said.

A U.S. Navy ship and helicopter were guiding the Tanzanian-flagged boats Mavuno 1 and 2 further out to sea, where naval personnel will later board the vessels and treat crew members, said Cmdr. Lydia Robertson of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. The Navy is in radio contact with pirates aboard three other ships in the region, encouraging them also to leave those ships and sail back to Somalia, she told The Associated Press.

"We're very happy with this development and hope it happens with the other ships off the coast," Robertson said. "We're very happy for the crew and their families."

Robertson said the pirates boarded skiffs after they left the hijacked ships, and headed back to Somalia. No shots were fired during the incident, she said. She gave no more details.

The U.S. has now intervened four times in one week to help ships hijacked by Somali pirates. Sailors boarded a North Korean ship to give medical assistance to crew members who overpowered their hijackers, and a Naval vessel fired on pirate skiffs tied to a Japanese-owned ship.

Robertson said that ship was still under control of pirates, although the U.S. Navy was still working to free that ship from pirates. There were no details on the other two seized ships. Hijackings in the vast stretch of water frequently go unreported.

In South Korea, the Foreign Ministry said 24 sailors onboard the two Korean-owned ships seized May 15 off Somalia were safe. The ministry said the ships were being escorted to a port in Yemen by a U.S. Navy warship at the request of the South Korean government, the ministry said in a statement. The two dozen sailors were comprised 10 Chinese, four South Koreans, three Vietnamese, three Indians and four Indonesians.

South Korean media have reported that the Somali pirates were demanding between $700,000 and $1 million in ransom. Robertson had no comment on ransom demands, deferring to the shipping company.

Somalia lies close to crucial shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean, where valuable cargo and carriers must pass.

Somalia has had no effective government since 1991, when warlords ousted a dictatorship and then turned on each other. The country's 1,880-mile coastline makes it difficult to prevent attacks.

Last year, another South Korean fishing vessel was captured off Somalia and released three months later after a ransom of more than $800,000 was paid.

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NKorea grateful to US for helping sailors in Somali pirate standoff
8 November 2007

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea expressed rare gratitude Thursday to the U.S. for helping end a high-seas standoff with Somali pirates, the latest sign of warming ties between the longtime foes fostered by progress on Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

"The pirates' recent armed attack on our trading ship was a grave terrorist act perpetrated against a peaceful ship," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said. "We feel grateful to the United States for its assistance given to our crewmen."

The cooperation between the countries at sea was unprecedented, historians said.

The last notable maritime encounter between North Korea and the U.S. was in 1968 when the North seized the USS Pueblo while it was on an intelligence-gathering mission off the country's coast and held 82 Americans as prisoners of war for 11 months.

The vessel is the only active-duty U.S. warship in the hands of a foreign power, and remains on display as a tourist attraction in the North Korean capital.

In a dramatic turnabout to that event nearly four decades later, it was the U.S. Navy that came to the aid of the North Korean cargo ship Dai Hong Dan.

KCNA said Thursday that the USS James E. Williams and a helicopter rushed to the scene and "helped the (North Korean) sailors in fighting, threatening the pirates" via radio in the standoff, also noting that an American surgeon treated wounded crew.

Seven pirates boarded the vessel Oct. 29 disguised as guards while it was in port in Mogadishu, Somalia, demanding US$15,000 (euro10,189) and that they take them wherever they wanted, according to the unusually detailed report from KCNA, the North's main organ for delivering propaganda to the outside world.

The North Koreans fought back after seizing weapons from two pirates guarding the ship's engine room -- eventually gaining control of their vessel 20 hours after being taken captive and leaving one pirate dead, KCNA said.

"As shown by our crewmen through their actions, it is the disposition of the Korean people to fight out any terrorist act on the spot though they are empty-handed," the report said.

The U.S. Navy has said it boarded the North Korean ship to provide medical assistance at the crew's invitation after they had already overpowered all pirates.

Washington has downplayed the significance of its assistance the North as anything unusual -- even though it remains technically at war with Pyongyang since the Korean War ended in a 1953 cease-fire. The U.S. led a U.N.-authorized coalition in the three-year conflict, and 28,000 American troops remain deployed in South Korea.

"We fulfilled our responsibilities as a responsible member of international maritime organizations and treaties and responded to a distress signal on the high seas," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday in response to the North's gratitude.

It was the second time in about two months for Pyongyang to thank Washington -- a rare move seen as reflecting the friendly mood between the two countries spawned by progress in their prolonged standoff over the North's nuclear weapons programs.

In September, the North's Foreign Ministry issued a statement thanking the U.S. for providing emergency relief supplies after the severest floods in decades devastated the impoverished nation.

Pyongyang shut down its sole functioning nuclear reactor in July under a February deal with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia in exchange for political and economic concessions. It is now moving to disable is atomic facilities by year-end under watch of U.S. experts, meaning they will not be able to be quickly restarted.

One of its key demands in exchange for cooperating on disarmament has been removal from a U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.

In the Thursday report on the piracy incident, the first public mention by the North of the episode, Pyongyang sought to further advance such hopes -- saying the maritime collaboration as a "symbol of cooperation" between the two countries "in the struggle against terrorism."

"It is the consistent principled stand of the (North Korean) government to oppose all sorts of terrorism," KCNA said. "We will continue to render international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, in the future, too."

North Korea was put on the terror list for involvement in the 1987 bombing of a South Korean civilian jet that killed all 115 people aboard.

[hkskyline]

Two South Korean ships hijacked six months ago arrive in Yemen's southern port
13 November 2007

ADEN, Yemen (AP) - Two South Korean ships hijacked six months ago by Somali pirates arrived in Yemen's southern port of Aden on Tuesday.

Ali Ahmed Nasser, the director of the al-Awlaqy shipping agent company, said 21 crew members of the Mavuno 1 and 2 were taken to the Saber hospital in the al-Mansoura district for a medical checkup.

Nasser said the crew reported that the hijackers had stolen most of the communication equipment on the ships.

The pirates agreed to leave the ships Nov. 4 and headed back to Somalia. A U.S. Navy ship and a helicopter guided the boats further out to sea, where navy personnel boarded the vessels and gave the crew medical treatment.

The conditions of freeing the two ships were not known, but South Korean media have reported that the Somali pirates were demanding between US$700,000 and US$1 million in ransom.

South Korea at the time said all the sailors on board the two ships were safe and the Foreign Ministry said the ships were being escorted to Aden port at the request of the South Korean government. The sailors included 10 Chinese, four South Koreans, three Vietnamese, three Indians and four Indonesians.

[hetfield85]

Malaysia rebuffs US help in fighting Straits piracy

AFP - Thursday, November 15

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 14, 2007 (AFP) - A Malaysian minister on Wednesday rejected US help in fighting piracy in the Malacca Straits, saying it was not necessary since attacks have decreased significantly in the area.

"There is no reason for them to come in to guard," Deputy Minister Abdul Rahman Suliman told parliament, according to state news agency Bernama. "The United States and other quarters cannot deny that it is safe."

The minister was not responding to any recent offers by the United States for help, but Kuala Lumpur has long been wary of US intentions in the Straits, and has repeatedly rejected plans for American anti-terrorism patrols.

More than 30 percent of world trade passes through the area, and rampant attacks by pirates in the past have caused concern for nations relying on fuel shipments.

Maintaining and securing the waterway has been deemed the responsibility of the states that border the sea lane: Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

An increase in sea and air patrols by those countries has been credited with driving reported attacks down to 11 in 2006, compared with 38 in 2004.

In 2004, Admiral Thomas Fargo, America's top military commander in the region, said Washington was considering the possibility of deploying troops to the Straits as part of counter-terrorism efforts in Southeast Asia.

However, he later clarified that such an intervention "has never been the intention of the US" and that Washington respected Malaysia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

[hkskyline]

Malaysia rebuffs US help in fighting Straits piracy

AFP - Thursday, November 15

I notice the news have lately changed focus to Somalia with several high-profile hijackings.

Regional cooperation in info-sharing helps reduce robberies at sea
17 October 2007
Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE: The spate of petty robberies out at sea has dropped over the last three years, according to the information centre overseeing regional cooperation on combating piracy and armed robbery.

But the centre's deputy director, who spoke at a coastal surveillance conference, feels that more could be done to improve this situation, especially in preventing robberies at night when ships are docked at ports.

The Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Centre is barely a year old, but it has already scored some achievements in areas such as capacity building and cooperation enhancement.

The ReCAAP's Deputy Director Nicholas Teo said: "One is to reach out to industry. Through our reports, we have been advocating that ships should report to the various coastal stations so that information can be very quickly addressed and passed on."

As a result, there have been improvements in the number of robberies out at sea. A total of 26 minor cases were recorded this year between January and June, down from 37 cases in the same period two years ago.

For the moderately serious cases, there has been a sharp drop from 22 cases between January and June last year to just four in the first six months of this year. More efforts are being planned to enhance cooperation among the countries which are taking part in the ReCAAP.

In fact, a major table-top exercise is being planned early next year to enhance various levels of cooperation.

Analysts said all this is important because nearly half of the world's oil supplies pass through the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, making these sea lines of communication critical for ships.

The two-day conference also has an exhibition displaying some of the latest acquisitions by shippers to prevent danger at sea.

[hkskyline]

Concern grows for ship seized by pirates off Somalia

NAIROBI, Nov 18, 2007 (AFP) - Communication has been lost with a Comoran-flagged cargo ship captured by pirates off the Somali coast last month, raising fears of the crew safety, a maritime monitoring group said on Saturday.

The MV Al Marjan, with 22 mostly Asian crew members on board, was seized on October 19 as it sailed to Mogadishu port from the United Arab Emirates port of Dubai.

"We are worried that the ship has cut communication with the owner and the rest of the world," said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan branch of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme.

"This is the second week since it cut communication, which means there are no negotiations going. This is a very bad indicator on the fate of the crew," he told AFP.

The freighter is owned by Shahmir Maritime of Saint Vincent and Grenadines, but operated by Dubai-based Biyat International.

Mwangura explained that "cutting communication" between the pirated vessels and the outside world in the past has been an indication that "something bad" has happened onboard.

"When pirates killed a sailor in Ching Fong Hwa 168, they cut communication. That is why we are worried this time round," he said.

Ching Fong Hwa 168 was a Taiwanese-flagged ship seized by pirates in June before being released on November 5. One crew member was killed and another injured.

Mwangura said negotiations were underway to free Japanese tanker, Golden Nori -- believed to be carrying benzene -- that was kidnapped on October 28 with 23 crew members from Myanmar, Philippines and South Korea. Their condition is unknown.

The vessel was sailing from Singapore to Israel when its was seized.

"I expect that the pirates will ask for ransom of more than a million dollars to free the tanker," he told AFP.

Mwangura explained that the size of ransom normally depends on the cost, type and ownership of the cargo, the value and nationality of the ship as well as the nationality of the crew.

The Danish freighter, Danica White, was freed in August after nearly three months in the Somali coast after 1.5 million dollar ransom was paid.

The US Navy patrolling the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden waters has urged the pirates to abandon the vessels.

Rampant piracy off Somalia stopped in the second half of 2006 but resumed when an Islamist movement that had enforced strict rule was ousted by Ethiopian and Somali transitional government troops at the end of the year.

Several attacks have occurred this year off Somalia's 3,700 kilometres (2,300 miles) of unpatrolled coastline, prompting the International Maritime Bureau to advise sailors to steer clear from the coastline.

Somalia lies at the mouth of the Red Sea -- on a major trade route between Asia and Europe via the Suez canal -- and has lacked a functional government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

[hetfield85]

If the shipping line just be farther out to the ocean from the coast of somalia i'm sure the hijackings can be reduced. I dont think the pirates willing to go farther to the deep ocean.

[hetfield85]

http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/afp/20071120/tap-greece-malaysia-maritime-piracy-0193655.html
Greece donates funds to prevent Malacca Strait piracy
AFP - Tuesday, November 20

ATHENS, Nov 19, 2007 (AFP) - The Greek government announced Monday it would give one million dollars (682,000 euros) to help secure the Strait of Malacca, a vital shipping route in southeast Asia hit hard by piracy.

Greek Merchant Marine Minister Georges Voulgarakis made the announcement during a meeting of the 162-member UN agency International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London, his ministry said in a statement.

Voulgarakis said he hoped other countries would follow the lead of Greece which maintains the world's largest shipping fleet.

The sum will be deposited into a fund created by the IMO "to improve the security of the straits," in cooperation with countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia bordering the maritime corridor which handles 30 percent of all sea transport globally.

Connecting the Pacific and Indian oceans, the 805-kilometre (500-mile) strait is one of the sea routes most affected by piracy, despite an improvement in the security situation thanks to better cooperation between countries bordering the area.

The United States has offered to help secure the zone against possible terrorist attacks, which Malaysia has rejected to date.

[hkskyline]

Pirate Mother Ship Hunt Off Somali Coast
1 December 2007

ABOARD THE BABUR, Arabian Sea (AP) - Pirates from two small skiffs seized the crew of a Japanese vessel off anarchic Somalia's coast. American forces fired on the skiffs and destroyed them. Now the navies of the U.S. and 19 other countries are after bigger prey.

The U.S.-led coalition working to secure sea lanes beset by pirates believe skiffs like the ones used in the attack on the Japanese ship must have come from elusive "mother ships."

"The small boats which are used for piracy could not travel" from shore as far into the ocean as ships have been attacked, said Commodore Khan Hasham of Pakistan, one of the U.S. allies in the anti-piracy operation. "So they needed a mother ship from which the pirates could launch skiffs."

Aboard the Pakistani navy ship Babur, Pakistani special forces load their rifles and meticulously go through their drills, readying themselves to board suspicious vessels and search for weapons. U.S. Navy officers aboard swap theories with their Pakistani counterparts about where the mother ships could be.

Coalition officials are reluctant to name all the countries involved or the number of warships involved because of security concerns, and because cooperating with America is a delicate political issue in the tense oil states of the Persian Gulf.

Pakistan's relations with the U.S. have also been strained since President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency Nov. 3. But Musharraf remains a necessary partner and ally in the U.S. war against terror -- al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden may be hiding on the Pakistani frontier with Afghanistan.

This week, Pakistani sailors on the Babur and Americans on the USNS John Lenthall waved at each other across the waves during a refueling exercise, their captains chatting over short wave radio.

Their patrols address a growing problem. The International Maritime Bureau has recorded 31 attacks off Somalia this year but believe many more go unreported.

The 31 includes the seizure a month ago of a Japanese tanker carrying as much as 40,000 tons of highly explosive benzene in the Gulf of Aden.

Initially, American intelligence agents worried terrorists from Somalia's Islamic extremist insurgency could be involved and might try to crash the boat into an offshore oil platform or use it as a gigantic bomb in a Middle Eastern port.

When the Japanese vessel was towed back into Somali waters and ransom demanded, the coalition was relieved to realize it was just another pirate attack.

The more recent attack on a separate Japanese vessel occurred some 85 nautical miles from Somalia in the busy lanes used by boats entering the Suez Canal -- too far for the two small boats carrying pirates to have come from shore. Some attacks are even farther from land, as much as 250 nautical miles, Hasham said.

The pirates boarded the Japanese vessel before their skiffs were destroyed and remain aboard. The U.S. Navy has in the past persuaded pirates to abandon ships they have boarded and still hoped to do so in the case of the Japanese vessel -- though that might be complicated now that the pirates no longer have skiffs on which to leave.

No warship has located a mother ship yet, although that could be due to the continuos radio chatter they put out to warn pirates that they are patrolling the area in an effort to deter attacks. However, numerous ship captains have reported seeing the bigger pirate vessels.

"I thought it was an ordinary ship, then I saw two small fast motorboats coming from it toward us," Capt. Ling Xinshen, now safely in Mombasa, Kenya, said in recounting his vessel's seizure by pirates. He and his crew were held for ransom for seven months on the ship by pirates who killed one crew member.

Ling said he never again sighted the mysterious mother ship that loomed up so suddenly the sunny afternoon his ordeal began.

Everyone has a theory about where the mother ships hide. Cmdr. Robert D. Katz of the USS Stout says Somali national waters remain a blind spot for the coalition forces because they are barred from patrolling that territory. International maritime law says a country is responsible for law enforcement within 12 miles of its own coast, but Somalia is a failed state.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Now the weak transitional government and its Ethiopian allies are battling an Iraq-style Islamic insurgency.

The chaos, combined with connections between the pirates and powerful figures in key Somali clans that receive multimillion-dollar ransoms, mean that pirate ships can cruise the ragged coastline with relative impunity.

Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenya-based East Africa Seafarers' Assistance Program, says the mother ships melt into the ordinary shipping traffic without notice once they have disgorged their packs of speedboats. Coalition warships have frequently passed a mother ship without even realizing, he says.

The mother ships don't carry weapons, he says, preferring to arm two or three smaller boats with anti-tank missiles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. They leave the small boats at sea, possibly with another boat loaded with fuel. When a merchant ship comes into view, the small, fast boats attack as a pack.

Mother ships simply blend in among the fishing vessels, Mwangura said. "They won't find it until there are no fishing vessels in Somali waters."

[hkskyline]

Pirates release Japanese tanker and crew off Somalia, all crew members safe
12 December 2007

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - The waters off Somalia's 2,900-kilometer (1,800-mile) coast are the most lawless in the world, with pirates -- some working for the clans who rule instead of a government ashore -- cruising the sea with impunity as their country festers in chaos.

On Wednesday, pirates freed a Japanese tanker and its 22 crew members after six weeks of captivity, ending the latest in a string of attacks off Africa's longest coastline. The U.S. Navy, which has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region, said the release meant no ships were being held by Somali pirates for the first time in more than a year.

But there was no definitive word on where the pirates who seized the Golden Nori had gone, or whether a US$1 million ransom exchanged hands.

"All the pirates are off the ship, and the first indication is that all crew members are unharmed," Lt. John Gay, a U.S. Navy spokesman told The Associated Press. He added that the pirates headed toward the Somali coast off the eastern rim of the Horn of Africa. A landing vessel, the USS Whidbey Island, was monitoring them from "a visible distance."

Somali pirates, who have hijacked more than two dozen ships this year, are trained fighters, in some cases linked to powerful Somali clans. They are outfitted with sophisticated arms and GPS satellites that lead them to merchant ships, ships carrying aid, and once even a cruise ship.

The motivation often is money to supply the country's complex clan system, which has been the basis of politics and identity here for centuries. The weak government is using what resources it has to fight a bloody Islamic insurgency, meaning pirate ships can cruise the ragged coastline freely.

Earlier this week, a maritime official in neighboring Kenya said the pirates had threatened to kill the crew unless a US$1 million ransom was paid.

Abdi Yusuf, a Somali pirate who said he had been on board the Golden Nori, told The Associated Press from hiding that a ransom was paid -- but he would not say how much.

"We released the ship because we have been compensated," Yusuf said by telephone when contacted by The Associated Press. The claim could not be independently verified.

The 6,253-ton tanker, carrying crew from Myanmar, the Philippines and South Korea, was seized in late October. One of the two South Korean crew members escaped and was rescued by a passing vessel in early November.

"We feel so relieved," said Yoichi Oda, the Japanese Transport Ministry official in charge of crisis management.

Oda said the Golden Nori, escorted by U.S. navy vessels, was moving away from Somalia to a safe port in a nearby country. Its destination could not be disclosed, he said, citing the owner's safety concerns.

Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said that U.S. sailors boarded the tanker to secure the crew and are currently escorting them to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where they are expected to arrive Dec. 18. The nine Filipino seamen will be replaced with a fresh crew there.

The Golden Nori crew members "are safe and in good condition" and were undergoing health examinations, Conejos said in a statement.

The ship's Japanese owner, Dorval Kaiun K.K., said in a separate statement that the release was a result of "our persistent negotiation effort, with the help of U.S. and British navies."

Oda said he could not comment on the details of negotiations or what prompted the captors to agree to the release.

In Manila, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo was "elated" over the release, according to his spokesman Claro Cristobal.

Redentor Anaya, vice president of SeaCrest Maritime Management Inc., a Philippine company that provided a captain and eight other crew for the tanker, said he was informed that the crew were "all safe."

The chemical tanker had been anchored off the Somali coast and carrying up to 10,000 tons of highly explosive benzene.

The U.S. Navy in late October came to the aid of the vessel, with the guided missile destroyer USS Porter at one point opening fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to it. The U.S. military has recently intervened several times to help ships hijacked by Somali pirates.

------

Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Oliver Teves in Manila contributed to this story.

[hkskyline]

Global Pirate Attacks Up 10 Pct. in '07
9 January 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Global pirate attacks rose by 10 percent in 2007, marking the first increase in three years as sea robbers made a strong comeback in Nigeria and Somalia, an international maritime watchdog said Wednesday.

Last year, there were 269 attacks on ships, up from 239 in 2006 and reversing a downtrend seen since 2003, the International Maritime Bureau said in its annual report released by its piracy reporting center in Malaysia.

"The significant increase in the (2007) numbers can be directly attributed to the increase in the incidents in Nigeria and Somalia," IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said in a statement.

Attacks in Nigeria surged to 42 from 12 cases in 2006, he said. Somalia reported a threefold increase of 31 cases, from 10 in 2006.

The IMB report said pirates were better armed and more violent in 2007, with 18 vessels hijacked worldwide, 292 crew members taken hostage, five killed and three still missing.

Guns were used in 72 attacks, up 35 percent from 2006. It said 64 crew members were assaulted and injured, compared to only 17 in 2006, with majority of the incidents occurring off Somalia's coast.

The report said pirates used rocket propelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons as well as mother vessels to launch smaller craft to attack ships further away from Somali's coast.

Somalia's 1,880-mile coastline is the longest in Africa and near to key shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. Wracked by 16 years of violence and anarchy, Somalia does not have its own navy and the transitional government formed in 2004 with U.N. help has struggled to assert control.

The IMB urged ships to stay as far away as possible from the Somali coastline.

In Nigeria -- Africa's oil producer -- attacks were focused in hotspots like Lagos, and some were linked to so-called militants claiming to pursue political goals, the report said.

Indonesia remained the world's hottest piracy hotspot with 43 attacks last year, but this was down from 50 cases in 2006 and were mainly low-level crimes, the report said.

The IMB also applauded authorities in Bangladesh for curbing attacks to 15 last year, down from 47 in 2006.

Cases in the Malacca Strait, a bustling shipping route that carries half the world's oil and more than a third of its commerce, also fell for a third successive year to seven, from 11 in 2006, it said.

[hkskyline]

China should be part of proposed force against maritime piracy: Spain

MADRID, April 29, 2008 (AFP) - China and other Asian nations that fish off the coast of Somalia should take part in a proposed UN-backed force to combat maritime piracy, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said late Monday.

"Countries like China, Japan, South Korea and France that are fishing in that area, which has become especially dangerous, should take part in a joint force that guarantees safety," he told public television TVE.

"It is a wide area, it is an area that requires joint efforts from various countries so that we can continue to fish there," he added.

Spain has joined calls for a United Nations-backed force to combat maritime piracy since pirates armed with grenade launchers seized a Spanish trawler, the Playa de Bakio, and its crew of 26 off Somalia on April 20.

The ship and its crew of 13 Spaniards and 13 Africans were released unharmed on Saturday.

A Kenyan-based regional maritime group says the release followed the payment of a ransom of 1.2 million dollars (768,000 euros) but the Spanish government has said it did not hand over any money to the captors.

The coastal waters of Somalia -- which has not had an effective central government for more than 17 years and is plagued by insecurity -- are considered to be among the most dangerous in the world.

At the start of April pirates held a crew of 30 aboard a luxury French yacht, before a ransom was paid and the sailors were released. French special forces later captured some of the alleged pirates. Six men are now to face trial in Paris.

More than 25 ships were seized by pirates in Somali coastal waters last year despite US navy patrols, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

It advises merchant ships to stay at least 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from the country's coast.

[Nutterbug]

There shouldn't be this problem in an age when there are such things as bomber planes.

[JohanSA]

The problem is there is no coast guard or large navy presence. And that will not change soon. South Africa and the USA cant patrol the whole african coast. Luckily Europes biggest oil tanker route is safe.

[hkskyline]

Good luck putting bomber planes on patrol off Somalia's coast. That government has enough problems on land already.

[hkskyline]

Official: Somali pirates release UAE-owned ship that had been held for a week
23 May 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Somali pirates released a United Arab Emirates-owned ship they captured a week ago, officials said.

Street battles in Mogadishu, meanwhile, killed at least five people and wounded three, witnesses said. Five African Union troops were wounded in a separate incident.

Somalia has been in a state of anarchy since warlords overthrew long-serving dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The country does not have a coast guard or navy.

The owners of the ship, the MV Victoria, told the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Program that it was released Friday and is now traveling with a handful of Somali soldiers on board to ensure its safe passage, program coordinator Andrew Mwangura said.

Marwan Shipping and Trading Company, based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, owns the Jordanian-flagged MV Victoria, Mwangura told The Associated Press. He said he did not know under what terms the pirates released the ship.

The ship is traveling to Mogadishu -- its destination before it was hijacked on May 17 -- to offload its cargo, Mwangura said.

There have been conflicting reports about whether it was carrying humanitarian aid or commercial cargo.

The ship has about a dozen crew members from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Tanzania.

This month's hijacking was the second time the Victoria was attacked. Pirates tried to board it last year outside Merka, a port in southern Somalia, but the ship escaped.

Piracy is rampant along the 1,880-mile (3,000-kilometer) Somali coast, which is the longest in Africa and is near key shipping routes connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. There have been more than a dozen pirate attacks this year alone.

On Thursday, South Africa's U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said that U.N. experts monitoring a 1992 arms embargo in Somalia were investigating the links between piracy and arms trafficking.

The experts were also investigating allegations that pirates received "active support" from government officials in charge of the ports, Kumalo said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

Last month, the U.S. and France introduced a U.N. resolution that would allow countries to chase and arrest pirates off Somalia's coast. The resolution came in response to the increase in attacks this year and last year compared with 2006 when they had dwindled.

The clashes in Mogadishu between insurgents and Somali soldiers, who were backed by Ethiopian troops, lasted about five hours. The fighting erupted while the soldiers were conducting house-to-house searches for weapons.

An Associated Press reporter counted five bodies and saw three other people who were wounded.

A roadside bomb exploded later Friday, injuring five AU peacekeepers traveling in a vehicle, said Maj. Bahoku Barigye, the force's spokesman.

Somalia's weak, U.N.-backed government has been struggling to quash the resurgent insurgency. In December 2006, neighboring Ethiopia sent troops who are still propping up the government. Thousands of civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes in a burgeoning humanitarian crisis.

------

Associated Press writers Mohamed Olad Hassan, Mohamed Sheikh Nor and Salad Duhul in Mogadishu, Somalia contributed to this report.

[hkskyline]

French navy looking to strengthen ties with China against Somalia piracy
16 June 2008
Agence France Presse

The French navy and its Chinese counterpart are discussing ways to strengthen intelligence exchange to combat piracy off the coast of Africa, a senior French naval officer said on Monday.

"We will see if we can do something together, especially in the waters off Somalia, where many Chinese fishing boats travel to," Vice Admiral Gerard Valin, who is also commander of French joint forces in the Indian Ocean, told AFP.

Valin arrived in Hong Kong on Monday with 200 crew on board the Var, one of the four replenishment and command ships of the French navy which also provides logistics support to overseas warships and planes.

He will meet security chiefs from Hong Kong and mainland China during his stay, with the aim of furthering cooperation between the two sides.

The vessel, which made its maiden voyage to Hong Kong last year, will leave the south Chinese city on Friday for Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia.

Valin said the need to strengthen international exchange of information at sea was a prominent theme in this year's Shangri-la Dialogue, an annual event held last month in Singapore, where defence ministers convened to discuss security issues for the Asia-Pacific region.

He added that while security around the Malacca Straits had significantly improved over the last decade, pirate attacks off the coasts of Africa remained rampant.

The waters off Somalia -- which has not had an effective central government for more than 17 years and is plagued by insecurity -- are considered to be among the most dangerous in the world.

The UN Security Council earlier this month unanimously adopted a resolution authorising foreign warships to enter Somali waters with the transitional government's consent to combat piracy and armed robbery at sea.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates got ransom for freeing German ship: captain
9 July 2008
Agence France Presse

Somali pirates took a 750,000 dollar ransom for the release of 15 crew and their German-owned ship after a 41-day hostage ordeal, Estonian state TV quoted the ship's captain as saying Wednesday.

"Tuesday morning, when pirates finally got the money they wanted, they counted it from seven in the morning until six in the evening and then they finally left," Valentin Bartashov said in a telephone interview.

He did not say who paid the ransom or how it was delivered.

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet had earlier told the daily Eesti Paevaleht that the state was not involved in any ransom payment.

"We don't make deals with terrorists," Paet said.

The German-owner of the ship, the Lehmann Timber, refused to give any details of how the vessel was released.

Happy to be alive but suffering from hunger and exhaustion an Estonian crew member told state TV the ship was still days away from a safe port in Oman.

"We're all alive," Estonian Ardo Kalle, the only EU citizen among the crew of 15 which includes Russians, Ukrainians and Myanmar nationals.

"We're very hungry, and we have almost no food left," said Kalle, the ship's first mate.

"We are free now but it still takes around three days to reach a safe port. The ship that was supposed to bring us food and drinking water was unable to get to our ship on Tuesday, so we have to manage without food," Kalle said, adding he hoped to be at home by next week.

Kalle said some 20 to 40 armed pirates stayed aboard the vessel during the 41-day hostage ordeal off the east African coast, confining the crew to cramped quarters.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates hijack Thai cargo ship: watchdog
14 August 2008
Agence France Presse

A Thai cargo ship has been hijacked off the Somali coast, a maritime watchdog said Thursday as it called on the United Nations and coalition forces to halt pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden.

"The Thai general cargo ship was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden on August 12 by Somali pirates," Noel Choong, head of the Kuala Lumpur-based International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre, told AFP.

Choong said the watchdog was unable to provide additional information on the attack because "the ship was still moving with the hijackers onboard."

"In view of the crew safety, we are unable to provide further details," he said.

Choong said that because Somalia has no central government, the military forces patroling the Gulf of Aden should take the lead to deter piracy which is rampant in the region.

"We hope the UN and the coalition forces will stop the attacks. Unless there is a deterrent, the attacks and hijacking will continue to escalate," he warned.

In recent weeks, the IMB has reported a series of attacks and hijackings off the Somali coast.

Last week, a Singapore-flagged vessel was attacked by pirates who fired a rocket-propelled grenade that landed on the ship but did not explode. A coalition warship scared away the attackers and the vessel escaped unscathed.

On July 20, pirates seized the Stella Maris, a Japanese-owned bulk carrier, and demanded a ransom from the owners.

A Nigerian tug boat is also believed to have been seized on August 4 but the centre is still seeking more details on the case.

The waters off Nigeria and Somalia are the world's most dangerous hotspots for seafarers.

[hkskyline]

Pirates seize Malaysia palm oil tanker off Somalia

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 20 (Reuters) - A Malaysian oil tanker, with 39 crew on board and laden with palm oil, has been hijacked in the pirate-infested waters between Yemen and Somalia.

"This is the fourth ship being hijacked in a month" in this area, said Noel Chong, head of the International Maritime Bureau reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur. "We call upon the U.N. to take immediate steps to tackle the worsening problem."

The Malaysian tanker was heading towards Rotterdam from Dumai in the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The crew included 29 Malaysians and 10 Filipinos, MISC Bhd said on Wednesday.

"MISC regrets to inform that its chemical/palm oil tanker, MT Bunga Melati Dua, has been hijacked by unknown pirates at 1409 GMT on Aug. 19," the company said in a statement.

Piracy is rife off Somalia, which has been mired in anarchy since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991.

The ship, which was seized between Somalia and Yemen, was carrying about 32,000 tonnes of crude palm oil, worth $2.5 million at current prices. MISC is the shipping arm of Malaysian state oil and gas firm Petronas.

Chong said a warship had been despatched to intercept the tanker, believed to be heading towards Somali waters. Neither Chong or MISC gave details on the identity of the warship.

Gunmen are holding a Japanese-managed bulk vessel, the MV Stella Maris, which was hijacked on July 20.

Last week, pirates also seized a Thai cargo ship, the MV Thor Star, and a Nigerian tug boat, the MT Yenegoa Ocean.

Abdullahi Said Nur, the mayor of Eyl -- where many of the captured ships have been taken -- told Reuters negotiations were under way with the pirates holding the Japanese vessel.

"They have demanded a $2 million ransom," he said.

In most cases Somali pirates have treated their hostages with care in the hope of receiving a substantial ransom payment.

On Aug. 8, one group of gunmen freed two German tourists who had been held captive in northern Somalia for two months after their yacht was attacked in the Gulf of Aden. An accomplice of the gang said they were paid a $1 million ransom.

Maritime experts say the waters off Somalia have become among the most dangerous in the world for commercial shipping.

"We urge ships plying the Gulf of Aden to maintain strict 24-hour anti-piracy visuals and look out for small suspicious boats coming towards them," Andrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said in a statement.

[Rapid]

Interesting.

[hkskyline]

Pirates attack 2 ships off Somalia's coast in failed hijacking attempts
23 August 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Armed pirates in speedboats ambushed two ships off Somalia's coast Saturday but failed to hijack them after one of the vessels sped away and the other was rescued by a military patrol aircraft, an official said.

Pirates first attacked a Japanese-operated ship with a crew of 20 in the Gulf of Aden, as the ship was heading to the Middle East from Singapore, said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur. The ship's crew was safe and no one was injured in the hour-long chase, Choong said.

"Two speed boats chased and opened fire at the Japanese-operated ship. A suspected mother ship was in the vicinity. But the Japanese ship managed to escape after the captain increased speed and took evasive maneuvers," he told The Associated Press.

A Liberian cargo ship in the area was attacked three hours later in the same manner by armed pirates in two speedboats, Choong said. The ship's captain called the piracy center in Kuala Lumpur, which alerted a naval patrol force in the area, he added.

Choong said a military aircraft rushed to the scene and managed to scare off the pirates.

The military aircraft was part of the multinational naval force currently deployed in the area. Choong declined to give details about the type of aircraft used or to which country it belonged.

Choong said the pirates in both attacks were believed to be part of the same group.

The attempted hijacks come just days after pirates seized four other vessels -- Malaysian, Iranian, Japanese and German -- in the Gulf of Aden.

On Tuesday, pirates seized a Malaysian palm oil tanker with 39 crew. Two days later, they hijacked an Iranian bulk carrier with 29 crew, a Japanese-operated chemical tanker with 19 crew and a German-operated cargo ship with nine crew in the same area.

"It appears pirates are still trying to hijack ships in the location," Choong said.

He said the United Nations and the international community must take action to secure the area.

Somalia is the world's piracy hotspot. Thirty out of 36 attacks on ships off Somalia's coast have occurred in the Gulf of Aden, a busy waterway connecting the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The latest attacks have raised alarm among seafarers using the key shipping route. The International Maritime Bureau has issued an urgent warning to ships to be on strict watch, Choong said.

[hkskyline]

Malaysia sends troops to protect ships in Gulf of Aden: report
2 September 2008
Agence France Presse

Malaysia has sent crack troops and navy ships to the Gulf of Aden after two of its vessels were seized by pirates last month, according to reports Wednesday.

The comments by deputy premier Najib Razak come after the country's shipping giant MISC Berhad said Tuesday it had barred its vessels from the area, where two of its tankers were hijacked by armed pirates in August.

The area has seen a spate of attacks in recent weeks, with eight ships taken by pirates since the end of July.

"Our primary concern is the safety of our sailors," Najib was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper.

Malaysia's armed forces chief said the military had sent two warships to the Gulf of Aden last Saturday to monitor the situation, the Star reported.

Najib told the paper that negotiations between the pirates and representatives from MISC had not progressed much, with troops and naval vessels sent to protect another four of MISC's ships in the area.

The Bunga Melati 5 with 41 crew -- 36 Malaysians and five from the Philippines -- was seized last Friday off the coast of Yemen carrying 30,000 metric tonnes of petrochemicals.

Ten days earlier, the palm oil tanker Bunga Melati Dua, with 39 crew on board, was hijacked off the coast of Somalia. MISC said late Tuesday it had finally been able to regain radio contact with the Bunga Melati 5.

Malaysia's foreign ministry has set up a special unit to monitor the situation while appealing to authorities in both Yemen and Somalia to ensure the crew's release, state news agency Bernama reported.

It said the pirates had reportedly demanded a ransom of three million dollars for the return of the two ships and crew.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates want $8 mln to free three ships

NAIROBI, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Somali pirates are demanding a ransom of $8.2 million to free two Malaysian tankers and a Japanese-managed bulk carrier that they hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, a maritime official said on Tuesday.

Gunmen from Somalia have seized at least 30 vessels so far this year, making the waters off the Horn of Africa nation the most dangerous in the world. On Tuesday, the Malaysian vessels' owner ordered the rest of its fleet not to enter the area.

Andrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said the pirates wanted $4.7 million to release the Bunga Melati 5 and its sister ship, the Bunga Melati Dua, which are both owned by Malaysian national carrier MISC.

He told Reuters the gangs were also demanding $3.5 million to free the MV Stella Maris, which was hijacked on July 20. "We believe all three ships are near Eyl village, where the pirates have the strong support of locals," Mwangura said.

"Eyl was set up as a fishing base in 1973 and then later abandoned. It is a very remote area and the pirates feel safe. They know that no outsiders or spies can approach them there."

Somali officials say gunmen are believed to be holding at least six vessels for ransom near Eyl. In total, the pirates are thought to be holding about 130 crew members hostage.

The Bunga Melati 5 was carrying 30,000 tonnes of petrochemicals to Singapore from Saudi Arabia when it was seized on Friday. It had 36 Malaysian and five Filipino crew on board.

FEARS FOR SAILORS

MISC said it had been travelling "within the vicinity" of a Gulf of Aden security corridor that was set up last week, but that multinational forces had been unable to stop the hijacking.

The Bunga Melati Dua was laden with 32,000 tonnes of crude palm oil and was carrying 29 Malaysian and 10 Filipino sailors to Rotterdam from Indonesia when it was seized on Aug. 19.

"MISC has with immediate effect put a halt on all its vessels ... entering the Gulf of Aden until additional security measures by MISC are in place to enhance the safety of its vessels and crew," the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

MISC, part of Malaysia's state energy firm Petronas, has more than 100 ships. The company said negotiations were ongoing for the safe release of the crews of both hijacked vessels.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said navy vessels were sent to protect four other MISC ships in the area.

"Our priority is the safety of our sailors," Razak said. "We will do everything in accordance with international law."

Somali pirates also want $1 million for a Nigerian tug boat, the MT Yenegoa Ocean, which was seized earlier this month.

Lawlessness onshore is spreading fast as Somalia collapses into the worst fighting for nearly two decades. The chaos is fuelling a wave of piracy that increasingly threatens vessels in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's most important waterways.

Nearly 20,000 ships pass through the strategic channel each year, and the attacks are choking aid shipments to the country, worsening a crisis that aid workers say is the worst in Africa. (Additional reporting by Jalil Hamid and Soo Ai Peng in Kuala Lumpur; Writing by Daniel Wallis)

[hkskyline]

Four pirate attacks in Gulf of Aden in three days: Danish navy
7 September 2008
Agence France Presse

In the past three days there have been four pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden, and a Danish war ship has been involved in frightening off the assailants in two of the cases, the Danish navy said Sunday.

"For the second time in a period of 72 hours, the Danish war ship Absalon has gone into action against pirates spreading terror in the Gulf of Aden," the navy said in a statement.

The Danish ship, which is part of an international task force to stem the piracy problem off Somalia's northern coast, had first been called in to assist the Front Voyager trade vessel, located some 160 nautical miles from Absalon's location.

"Due to the distance, Absalon decided to send in its armed helicopter," which arrived on the scene as the crew was desperately using fire hoses to keep pirates from mounting their vessel, the navy said.

The helicopter held the attackers at bay until a US war ship could come to the rescue.

Not long after, the Absalon received another distress call from the Bunga Seroja Sato trade ship, which said it was being tailed by four motor boats that appeared to have pirates onboard.

The Danish ship ordered the trade vessel, located some 20 nautical miles away, to shift course in its direction.

"We consider that Bunga Seroja Sato's changed course and increased speed, as well as Absalon's arrival on the scene, contributed to the suspected pirates giving up and leaving the area," the navy said.

In all, there have been four pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden in the past three days, the navy said, adding that three of the attacks "have been foiled due to the international coalition force Task Force-150."

The outcome of the fourth attack remained unclear, navy spokesman Jesper Lynge told AFP.

The waters off Somalia, which has lacked an effective government since 1991, are the most dangerous in the world for pirate attacks, with the International Maritime Bureau reporting 24 attacks in the area between April and June this year.

According to Amnesty International, pirates are currently holding more than 130 crew members of ships captured in the Gulf of Aden.

[hkskyline]

Yemen steps up measures to fight maritime piracy
10 September 2008
Agence France Presse

Yemen has stepped up measures to combat piracy off its coast, deploying troops in the Gulf of Aden and planning three centres to fight Somali pirates, official sources said on Wednesday.

The website of the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) said the Yemeni coastguard recently deployed around 1,000 troops and 16 vessels in the Bab al-Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden to combat Somali pirates operating in the area.

The announcement came a day after the Yemeni government decided to set up three centres tasked with coordinating the fight against maritime piracy and protecting vessels, an official source said.

The centres will be set up in the port cities of Aden, Al-Hodeida and Al-Mukalla.

The waters between Yemen and Somalia are the most dangerous in the world for piracy. The International Maritime Bureau reported more than 24 attacks in the area between April and June.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that a South Korean cargo ship with Korean and Myanmarese sailors aboard was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia on Wednesday.

[hkskyline]

Singaporean, Chinese and Thai ships thwart pirate attacks off Somalia's coast
8 September 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked three vessels off Somalia's coast but failed to hijack them because of quick action by crew members, a maritime official said Monday.

A Chinese cargo ship, a Singaporean liquefied gas carrier and a Thai bulk carrier managed to thwart the pirates in the Gulf of Aden by increasing speed and taking evasive maneuvers, said Noel Choong of the International Maritime Bureau.

Somalia, which has had no functioning government since 1991, is the world's top piracy hotspot. The latest incidents bring to 44 the number of attacks off its coast this year. Most occurred in the Gulf of Aden, Choong said.

"Early detection allowed all three ships to report to IMB and take quick action to escape," said Choong, who heads the IMB's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur. He said the situation was still grave despite increased patrols by warships from a multinational coalition in the area.

The Chinese-owned ship, sailing under the flag of the Caribbean island state of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, was passing through the gulf Friday when crew noticed a blue tug identified by the IMB as a suspected pirate vessel, Choong said.

The crew raised the alarm after a speed boat from the tug headed toward the ship, he said. Four pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons started firing, but the ship escaped after it increased speed and the crew threw objects at the pirates during the chase, he said.

On Saturday, six pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades attempted to ambush a Singaporean tanker in the gulf, Choong said. The tanker increased speed and changed course, leaving the attacking boat rolling heavily and four pirates fell into the sea, he said.

The pirates later resumed chase and the ship captain contacted the IMB, which sought help from the coalition naval force, he said. The pirates gave up their chase before a coalition warship could reach the scene, he said.

The next day, pirates in two speed boats chased a Thai bulk carrier but it also managed to evade the pirates and headed toward Yemen's coast, Choong said.

Nobody on board the ships was injured in the incidents.

The attacks came after pirates hijacked an Egyptian cargo ship and a French sailboat last Wednesday. Ten vessels have been seized in the region since July 20.

The Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, is one of the world's busiest waterways with some 20,000 ships passing through it each year. The surge in pirate attacks has prompted the U.S. Naval Central Command to establish a security corridor in the gulf patrolled by the international coalition of warships.

[hkskyline]

SKorea works for release of sailors kidnapped off Somalia
Thu Sep 11, 6:28 AM ET

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea said Thursday it was cooperating with other countries to secure the release of 21 sailors on a South Korean ship hijacked by pirates off Somalia this week.

The foreign ministry said there had been no contact so far with the kidnappers as the hijacked ship was still on the move.

The 15,000-ton cargo ship with eight Koreans and 13 people from Myanmar aboard was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia on Wednesday, the ministry said.

"The government has been cooperating with major related nations since the incident occurred," ministry spokesman Moon Tae-Young told a briefing, refusing to identify them.

"We have to wait and see a little bit more, as there has been no contact offer from the kidnappers' group."

The ship was moving southward in the Gulf of Aden and is expected to reach the pirates' home base by Friday, he added.

Somali waters are the most dangerous in the world for piracy. The International Maritime Bureau reported more than 24 attacks in the area between April and June.

Maritime experts say many other attacks go unreported along Somalia's 3,700 kilometres (2,300 miles) of largely unpatrolled coast. Pirates operate high-powered speedboats and carry heavy machine guns and rocket launchers.

A South Korean tuna ship with 25 crew was hijacked by Somali pirates in April 2006. The ship and its crew were released after four months when a ransom was paid.

Last year Somali pirates seized two South Korean vessels and 24 crew including four South Koreans. The crew were released in November after six months in captivity.

Local media reports said the pirates had demanded a ransom of five million dollars before reducing the sum to an undisclosed figure.

In April this year, a South Korean bulk carrier came under attack off Somalia. It managed to escape the seizure attempt by pirates armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates release German, Japanese ships: maritime group
11 September 2008
Agence France Presse

Somali pirates have released a German-operated ship and a Japanese tanker seized last month, a Kenyan maritime organisation said Thursday.

The German's Antigua and Barbuda-flagged MV BBC Trinidad and Japanese MT Irene were seized on August 21 off the unpatrolled Somali coast, said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan branch of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme.

"As of now, we have confirmed that the two ships have been released by the pirates," he told AFP from the port town of Mombasa.

The MV BBC Trinidad, which was held in the northeastern Somali fishing village of Eyl, has a 13-member crew: a Slovenian captain, 10 Filipinos and two Russians.

"We have got information that 1.1 million dollars was paid for the release of the German ship," said Mwangura, adding that the freighter is headed to Muscat.

Mwangura said the MT Irene, which had 16 Filipinos and three Croatians, was freed from the same village a day after a group of Japanese arrived in Nairobi to boost efforts to release the tanker.

"We have reports that they brought ransom and were coordinating its payment," he added.

Sources close to the pirates in the northern Somali breakaway state of Puntland told AFP that a ransom of 1.5 million dollars was paid for the Japanese vessel but the information could not immediately be confirmed.

According to Somali officials and several maritime organisations, Somali pirates are currently holding several foreign ships hostage off the coast of the troubled Horn of Africa country.

Maritime experts say many attacks go unreported along Somalia's 3,700 kilometres (2,300 miles) of largely unpatrolled coastline infested by pirates, who operate high-powered speedboats and carry heavy machine guns and rocket launchers.

In June, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution authorising foreign warships to enter Somalia's territorial waters with the government's consent to combat pirates and armed robbery at sea, but it is yet to be implemented.

In recent months, a multinational taskforce based in Djibouti has been patrolling parts of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, where a pirate mothership is believed to be operating.

Some pirates have justified their actions by claiming that, in the absence of a functional central authority in Somalia, they were battling illegal fishing and toxic waste dumping by foreign countries.

Somalia has been without an effective central authority since the 1991 ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Bare set off a deadly power struggle that has defied more than a dozen peace initiatives.

[uwhuskies]

Companies should hire Blackwater to go out and kill every pirate they can find. That would solve the problem if they were fearing for their own lives.

[hkskyline]

Somali pirates wreak havoc with maritime traffic
AFP
Sun Sep 14, 8:42 AM ET

A flurry of attacks by Somali pirates is wreaking havoc with maritime traffic in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean amid complicated negotiations over the release of two kidnapped French sailors.

An oil tanker and a French tuna fishing boat were hit by Somali pirates off the coast of the lawless Horn of Africa country on Saturday, Kenyan and French maritime officials said Sunday.

Both escaped serious consequences, but the attacks came just two days after a Spanish trawler was targeted by Somali pirates.

The 450-foot (137-metre) oil tanker, operated by a Japanese company, narrowly escaped attack, a Kenyan maritime official said Sunday.

"A Panama-flagged oil tanker, MT Golden Elizabeth, was attacked yesterday by eight pirates in a small wooden boat in the Gulf of Aden," said Andrew Mwangura, from the Kenyan branch of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme.

"The tanker took evasive navigation and the pirates aborted the attack. No casualty was reported," he said, adding that the tanker was continuing its journey and communicating with the US navy.

Two rockets were fired on the French tuna fishing boat Le Drennec, but that attack was also aborted with no-one hurt because the sea was too rough.

The spate of attacks has prompted an estimated 20 French fishing boats operating out of the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Seychelles to cancel all outings in protest.

"We're fishermen, not warriors. We understand their decision, we are former sailors ourselves. Going out to sea in fear and trembling is not what we're asking them to do," French maritime official Pierre-Alain Carre told AFP.

Somali pirates are currently holding several ships in the area -- with a demand for the release by French authorities of pirates detained after an earlier, high-profile kidnapping complicating talks to free the duo.

Officials told AFP Sunday that a French yacht and its two French crew members, captured earlier this month, had docked near the village of Bargal in the northern Somali breakaway state of Puntland.

"We have information indicating that the pirates are demanding a ransom and the release of some of their colleagues captured by French commandos in a raid earlier this year," Puntland presidential adviser Bile Mohamoud Qabowsade said.

"We have sent a group of local elders and regional officials to the coastal village where the pirates are detaining the French nationals in order to engage talks, but it still seems too early to discuss any results," he told AFP.

French commandos carried out an operation in April and captured six pirates after the seizure of a French luxury sailing ship, Le Ponant, with its 30 crew, including 22 French nationals. The pirates remain in the hands of French justice.

Dozens of ships, mainly merchant vessels, have been seized by pirates off the coast of lawless Somalia this year. The ships are sometimes held for weeks and generally released after large ransoms are paid by governments or owners.

Hared Ise Omar, a commissioner in the nearby coastal village of Alula in Puntland, said the pirates had been urged to treat their hostages well.

"We are hearing from sources close to the pirates that they are demanding two million dollars to release the French hostages on board the yacht but we don't have more concrete information," he told AFP.

"We told the pirates to treat their hostages well," he added.

Maritime experts say many attacks go unreported along Somalia's 3,700 kilometres (2,300 miles) of largely unpatrolled coastline.

The pirates operate high-powered speedboats and are heavily armed.

In recent months, a multinational taskforce based in Djibouti has been patrolling parts of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, where a pirate mothership is believed to be operating.

[hkskyline]

French army frees hostages off Somalia

PARIS, Sept 16 (Reuters) - French commandos stormed a luxury yacht on Tuesday to rescue two French tourists who were being held for ransom by heavily-armed Somali pirates, President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

One pirate was killed and six others taken prisoner in the pre-dawn assault by some 30 troops. The freed hostages and the captured pirates were put on a French navy ship sailing towards Djibouti, where France has a military base.

"This operation ... is a warning to all those engaged in this criminal activity. France will not accept that crime pays," Sarkozy said after the operation.

Gunmen from Somalia have hijacked more than 30 ships so far this year, making the strategic shipping lanes in the busy Gulf of Aden the most dangerous in the world.

Hours after the French raid, pirates seized an oil or chemical tanker believed to be Hong Kong-owned, a maritime official said. More than two dozen European tuna fishing vessels rushed to the Seychelles for safety, fearing more attacks.

It was the second time this year that French troops had acted against Somali pirates. In April, French commandos captured six of them shortly after a ransom had been paid for the release of another French yacht and its 30-strong crew.

The couple rescued on Tuesday were seized on Sept. 2 by gunmen who had demanded a ransom of more than $1.4 million and the release of the pirates captured in April.

Sarkozy said the freed hostages, who had been sailing a yacht from Australia to France, were in good health.

He said he had ordered the commandos to move in when it became clear the pirates were taking their captives to Eyl, a lawless former fishing outpost now used by gangs.

Sarkozy said any rescue attempt from Eyl would have been too dangerous and the hostages could have been held for months.

"CRIMINAL INDUSTRY"

"These are not isolated cases but a fully fledged criminal industry. This industry endangers our fundamental rights, freedom of movement and of international trade," Sarkozy said.

"The world must not remain indifferent or passive. I call on other countries to take their responsibilities as France has done twice."

He thanked Germany and Malaysia for supporting Tuesday's raid, but declined to explain how they had helped.

Sarkozy said a French naval vessel would start escorting ships in the Gulf of Aden, but that was not enough.

"I am calling on the entire international community to mobilise and take part in the security of maritime traffic and the protection of people in the Gulf of Aden," he said.

"France will take an initiative in that sense at the United Nations Security Council," he said, without elaborating.

Sarkozy said the six captured pirates would be brought to France. He said he was prepared to return them to Somalia on condition he had guarantees they would be tried and punished.

On Sunday, pirates fired rockets at a French tuna fishing boat in the Indian Ocean, 400 nautical miles (740 km) off Somalia.

Dozens of tuna fishing vessels from France and Spain sought refuge in the Seychelles on Tuesday, demanding more protection.

"We are making arrangements to accommodate all the ships that are coming in," Lieutenant-Colonel Andre Ciseau, head of the Seychelles Ports Authority, told Reuters.

"At the moment we have 25, but we expect more."

[hkskyline]

Greek ship with 25 crew hijacked near Somalia
18 September 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Armed pirates hijacked a Greek bulk carrier with 25 crew members off the coast of Somalia on Thursday, the 13th ship seized in the notorious African waters in the past two months, a maritime official said.

The ship was en route to Kenya when it was attacked off Somalia's eastern coast, said Noel Choong of the International Maritime Bureau.

He said the latest incident showed that Somali pirates, who were previously operating off the country's northern coast in the Gulf of Aden, have to begun to attack ships in the east.

A multinational naval force patrolling the area has been informed, and ships have been warned to stay clear of Somalia's coast, he said.

"We advise ships to stay at least 250 miles (400 kilometers) from the coast and even then, they must maintain a strict watch," Choong said.

The latest incident brings to 55 the number of attacks on ships off the coast Somalia this year, most of which occurred in the Gulf of Aden. The surge if attacks has prompted the U.S. Naval Central Command to establish a security corridor patrolled by an international coalition of warships.

The Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, is one of the world's busiest waterways with some 20,000 ships passing through it each year.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991. Pirates there are often trained fighters, many of them dressed in military fatigues and typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenades.

[hkskyline]

Warships needed to halt Somalia pirates-shipowners

LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) - The world's naval powers must commit more warships to patrol the commercially strategic Gulf of Aden to counter rising levels of piracy off the coast of Somalia, some top global shipping groups urged on Thursday.

"The shipping industry's plea is in response to a situation which it describes as in danger of spiralling completely and irretrievably out of control," the bodies, which include leading ship associations and transport unions, said.

The vital sealane in the Arabian Sea between Yemen and Somalia links the Gulf and Asia to Europe and beyond via the Suez Canal and is critical to Gulf oil shipments.

In a joint statement the groups said urgent calls had been made to the United Nations in New York and the U.N.'s maritime body in London for effective naval forces to be deployed.

They called for more countries to commit warships in the region and to allow them to engage forcefully to safeguard one of the world's most strategically important waterways.

Some countries do periodically have naval craft in the region, but they are often constrained from active roles by their rules of engagement.

The urgent plea to act came as it emerged pirates from Somalia hijacked two more ships this week, the Hong Kong-owned Great Creation and Greek ship, the Centauri.

The trade bodies, which include the International Chamber of Shipping, Intercargo, Bimco and oil tanker group Intertanko noted some shipping firms were already refusing to transit the Gulf of Aden.

"Continued inaction against these violent acts could prompt shipowners to redirect their ships via the Cape of Good Hope, with severe consequences for international trade, including increased prices for delivered goods," they said.

Pirates are attacking shipping, including fully-laden oil tankers and gas carriers, almost everyday, some with rocket-propelled grenades, they said.

The groups said nearly 40 hijackings had taken place in the Gulf of Aden alone this year with 133 kidnapped crew and 10 ships being held.

The London-based International Maritime Bureau estimates that over 1,200 Somalis and at least six major gangs are involved in the attacks.

[hkskyline]

NATO warships Somalia bound on piracy mission
15 October 2008
Agence France Presse

NATO warships were steaming through the Suez Canal Wednesday en-route to Somalia to help combat piracy off the largely lawless African country's coast, an alliance spokesman said.

"Seven ships from six NATO navies ... are transiting the Suez Canal today on their way to conduct both anti-piracy duties and to visit NATO partner nations in the Gulf region," spokesman James Appathurai said.

The ships -- from Britain, Germany, Greece, Italy, Turkey and the United States -- include four frigates, two destroyers and a supply ship, and most are expected to begin anti-piracy duties within two weeks, he said.

Details of the mission are still being finalised, but Appathurai said the ships and their crews "will have the rules of engagement they need to engage in the operations that they have been assigned".

Captured pirates will be dealt with under the rules of the nation that each ship involved belongs to, he explained.

The vessels will also help escort UN World Food Programme (WFP) food shipments, until the European Union can set its own operation afoot, probably in December.

The WFP ships 30,000-35,000 tonnes of aid into Somalia each month. Its vessels are currently under Canadian escort, but that service is due to come to an end on October 20.

At least 32 foreign ships have been attacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden this year, more than twice the figure for all of 2007, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Piracy is rife and well organised in the region where Somalia's northeastern tip juts into the Indian Ocean, preying on a key maritime route leading to the Suez Canal through which an estimated 30 percent of the world's oil transits.

The pirates operate high-powered speedboats and are heavily armed, sometimes holding ships for weeks until they are released for large ransoms paid by governments or owners.

On Thursday, the EU announced that its mission -- to involve ships from Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and possibly Britain -- would be run from the British armed forces headquarters at Northwood, north of London.

Vice-Admiral Philip Jones was named as its commander.

[hetfield85]

Somali pirates hijack Philippines operated ship: watchdog

Somali pirates hijacked a Philippines-managed bulk carrier with 21 sailors aboard on Wednesday, a maritime watchdog said.

Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, told AFP pirates boarded the vessel at 0344 GMT in the notorious Gulf of Aden.

"The ship was sailing from the Middle East to Asia," he said.

Last week Somali pirates seized a Greek tanker and separately attacked a World Food Programme-chartered ship.

According to the IMB, 73 ships have been attacked off Somalia since January, 11 of which are still being held for ransom. Pirates are holding more than 200 crew members.

The Philippines said on Wednesday it supported establishing a coalition of naval forces off Somalia to prevent the hijacking of foreign vessels, many of which have Filipino crews.

Manila will continue to reject ransom demands for its citizens held by pirates, said Esteban Conejos, an undersecretary at the foreign department.

[hkskyline]

Indian, US navies begin sea exercises to tackle piracy
18 October 2008
Agence France Presse

The Indian and US navies on Saturday began a week-long series of joint exercises, looking to increase cooperation at a time of heightened fears about maritime piracy.

Codenamed "Malabar", the sea exercises in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Goa state in western India include the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, and a nuclear-powered US Navy submarine.

"With piracy becoming an international concern, such exercises attain much significance wherein two nations learn each others' procedure," Rear Admiral Anil Chopra told reporters on board the destroyer INS Mumbai.

Some 8,500 personnel are involved in the exercises, the Indian Navy said.

Indian naval officials said on Friday that they were deploying one of the country's latest warships to protect its merchant vessels in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia.

The move comes after the Hong Kong-registered MT Stolt Valor carrying mainly Indian crew was hijacked by Somali pirates on September 17, the latest in a string of similar incidents in the area.

[hkskyline]

NATO warships ready to tackle piracy off Somalia
24 October 2008
Agence France Presse

NATO warships are in place off the Somali coast to tackle rampant piracy in the waters, and are ready to escort UN aid vessels under threat, a spokesman for the alliance's naval command said Friday.

"The boats are in the area. They have started their deterrent role," a spokesman at NATO's naval command in Naples, Italy said by telephone, adding that the three vessels "would escort UN ships on request".

The ships -- an Italian destroyer and British and Greek frigates which form NATO's operation Allied Provider -- "may use force" under their rules of engagement and in line with international law, a statement said.

They will help escort UN World Food Programme (WFP) food shipments, whose cargo is a tempting target for pirates, until the European Union can launch its own operation, probably in December.

The WFP ships 30,000-35,000 tonnes of aid into Somalia each month.

On Thursday, a maritime watchdog said that Somali pirates were now responsible for nearly a third of all reported attacks on ships, often taking hostages and using high levels of violence.

The International Maritime Bureau said 63 of the 199 piracy incidents recorded worldwide in the first nine months of this year occurred in the waters off war-ravaged Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.

The figure is almost double that of the same period last year.

Also Thursday, the French navy arrested nine suspected pirates and handed them over to authorities in the breakaway Somali region of Puntland.

French marines in the Gulf of Aden arrested the men when their patrol intercepted two boats on Wednesday in international waters about 100 nautical miles (185 kilometres) off the Somali coast.

They found small arms and anti-tank weapons and equipment used to board ships on the vessels, said a statement from the French military in Paris.

NATO's top commander, US General John Craddock, said the operation is proof of the military alliance's ability to rapidly react to crises around the globe.

It "signifies NATO’s continued relevance and willingness to 'step in' and 'step up' to threats of all descriptions -- in this case the persistent threat of piracy," he said in a statement from his headquarters in Mons, Belgium.

Piracy is rife and well organised in the region where Somalia's northeastern tip juts into the Indian Ocean, preying on a key maritime route leading to the Suez Canal through which an estimated 30 percent of the world's oil transits.

The pirates operate high-powered speedboats and are heavily armed, sometimes holding ships for weeks until they are released for large ransoms paid by governments or owners.

On October 9, the EU announced that its mission -- with ships from Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and possibly Britain -- would be run from a headquarters at Northwood, north of London.

Russia and India have also sent ships to the area on anti-piracy duties.

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Pirate coast of Africa offers new frontier for security firms looking beyond Iraq
26 October 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms -- some with a reputation for being quick on the trigger in Iraq -- are joining the battle against pirates plaguing one of the world's most important shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia.

The growing interest among merchant fleets to hire their own firepower is encouraged by the U.S. Navy and represents a new and potential lucrative market for security firms scaling back operations in Iraq.

But some maritime organizations told The Associated Press that armed guards may increase the danger to ships' crews or that overzealous contractors might accidentally fire on fishermen.

The record in Iraq of security companies like Blackwater, which is being investigated for its role in the fatal shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007, raises concerns about unregulated activity and possible legal wrangles.

"Security companies haven't always had the lightest of touches in Iraq, and I think Somalia is a pretty delicate situation," said Roger Middleton, who wrote a recent report on piracy in Somalia for Chatham House, a think tank in London.

NATO, with a flotilla of warships due to arrive in Somali waters this weekend, is trying to work out legal and regulatory issues surrounding the use of armed contractors before adopting a position on private security companies.

But the U.S. Navy, part of the coalition already patrolling off the coast of Somalia, says the coalition cannot effectively patrol the 2.5 million square miles of dangerous waters and welcomes the companies.

"This is a great trend," said Lt. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet. "We would encourage shipping companies to take proactive measures to help ensure their own safety."

Somali officials also approve of the private contractors.

Abdulkadir Muse Yusuf, deputy marine minister of the semiautonomous region of Puntland, said private firms are welcome in Somali waters. As well as fighting piracy, he said, they could help combat illegal fishing and toxic waste dumping.

Some security companies -- not all of which let their employees carry lethal weapons -- blame trigger-happy operators in Iraq and Afghanistan for tarnishing the reputation of legitimate businesses.

After a series of shootings that killed civilians, Iraqi legislators negotiated an agreement with the U.S. that will remove some of the private contractors' immunity from prosecution. U.S. authorities are investigating Blackwater for improperly bringing weapons into Iraq and for its role in the 2007 Iraqi civilian deaths.

The removal of immunity, Iraq's stabilizing security situation and a glut of security operators in the country have combined to tempt some companies to seek a new market in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden off Somalia.

Last week, Blackwater announced it was hiring a ship fitted with helicopters and armed guards for escorting vessels past Somalia's pirate-ridden coast. Spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said it had received 15 inquiries so far.

Peter Singer, an expert on private security companies, agrees Africa is a potential growth market, but he says it's unlikely many firms will abandon work in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there are dramatically more business opportunities as long as the wars continue.

"If somehow Iraq ends and you see a shrinking amount of contractors there, most of them are in logistics and training services," Singer added. "None of that carries over to this role."

British firms dominate security work in the Gulf of Aden, but American companies are increasingly getting into the action, according an Associated Press examination of new anti-piracy efforts through interviews in East Africa, Europe and Washington.

In addition to Blackwater, Mississippi-based Hollowpoint, which has not been active in Iraq, says it will provide guards and recover seized ships.

"We'll get your crew and cargo back to you, whether through negotiations or through sending a team in," said CEO John Harris, who is discussing contracts with several companies.

There have been 63 reported attacks on ships off the Somali coast this year alone and probably many more have been carried out. Almost a third of the recorded attacks have been successful.

Ransoms can reach into the millions of dollars. That's a fortune in a failed state like Somalia, where almost half the people depend on aid and warlords plunder food shipments meant for starving children. The money goes to clan-based militias, some of which are fighting in Somalia's civil war.

Cyrus Mody, the manager of the International Maritime Bureau, says private security personnel can offer useful advice to ship captains, but he worries not all companies have clear rules of engagement or have sought legal advice about the consequences of opening fire.

So far hijackings are rarely fatal: One Chinese sailor was executed by pirates when ransom negotiations were going badly, and the two other known deaths resulted from a ricochet and a heart attack.

Mody says armed guards onboard ships may encourage pirates to use their weapons or spark an arms race between predators and prey. Currently, pirates often fire indiscriminately during an attack but don't aim to kill or injure crew. The pirates usually use assault rifles but have rocket-propelled grenades; some reports also say they have mini-cannon.

"If someone onboard a ship pulls a gun, will the other side pull a grenade?" Mody asked.

British contractors stress the importance of intelligence and surveillance, a safe room for the crew to retreat to if the ship is boarded, and the range of non-lethal deterrence measures available.

"The standard approach is for (pirates) to come in with all guns blazing at the bridge because when a boat is stopped it's easier to board," said David Johnson, director of British security firm Eos. "But if you have guns onboard, you are going to escalate the situation. We don't want to turn that part of the world into the Wild West."

Johnson's employees don't carry arms, relying on tactics that can be as simple as greasing or electrifying hand rails, putting barbed wire around the freeboard -- the lowest area of the deck -- or installing high-pressure fire hoses directed at vulnerable areas of a ship.

One tugboat confused its attackers by going into a high-speed spin when pirates approached, causing the attackers to give up -- and leaving the crew sick but safe.

High-tech but non-lethal weapons include dazzle guns, which produce disorienting flashes; microwave guns, which heat up the skin causing discomfort but no long-term damage; and acoustic devices that can blast a wave of painful sound across hundreds of yards.

Johnson believes his company's refusal to carry guns has helped attract business: inquiries have gone up three- to fourfold in the past few months.

Other companies do arm their employees, pointing out that while non-lethal weapons are also carried and greatly preferred, they can be taken out by bullets or a grenade, sustain damage from salt water, and may have a shorter range than some weapons of pirates.

Pirate attacks have driven up insurance premiums tenfold for ships plying the Gulf of Aden, increasing the cost of cargos that include a fifth of the world's oil. But some insurers will slash charges by up to 40 percent if boats hire their own security. Earlier this month, British security firm Hart launched the first joint venture with an insurance company, offering discounted premiums for ships sailing past Somalia that used Hart's guards.

The 20,000 ships that pass through the Gulf of Aden on the way to or from the Suez Canal each year can't avoid the 1,800 miles of Somali coastline without sailing around the entire continent of Africa.

The jump in interest in private contractors -- spurred by last month's hijacking of a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weapons -- has brought new players into the market and a flood of business for well-established firms.

Drum Cussac, a specialist maritime security company, says its business has increased 50 percent the last few months. Not operating in Iraq or Afghanistan, the firm has traditionally supplied security teams to luxury yachts like the French Le Ponant, which was hijacked last April with 22 crew members onboard.

Maritime operations manager Michael Angus says the yacht business has doubled. And now, he says, merchant ships such as bulk carriers or oil tankers are asking the company for teams of armed guards, making what was once a seasonal business off Somalia a year-round enterprise.

London-based Olive Group, which protects Shell operations in Iraq, began offering services in the Gulf of Aden earlier this year. Its security consultant, Crispian Cuss, says just the presence of armed guards may be a deterrent. Pirates get information on crews and cargos from contacts in ports or at shipping companies and avoid vessels with armed men on board, he said.

"No client's ship has been approached by pirates while we've been on them," he said.

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Foreign navies powerless to eradicate Somalia piracy: experts
27 October 2008
Agence France Presse

A spate of high-profile hijackings by Somali pirates has spurred western navies into action but experts argue that a handful of warships can do little to stamp out the lucrative piracy business.

An Italian destroyer as well as British and Greek frigates arrived in the Gulf of Aden last week as the front guard of NATO's anti-piracy Operation Allied Provider.

NATO announced Monday that one of its ships had successfully carried out its first mission, escorting a vessel bringing supplies to African Union peacekeepers in Somalia.

The European Union (EU) has also pledged another three or four vessels by December in a bid to stem a phenomenon that is threatening world trade.

But experts say a beefed up naval presence can achieve little more than escort services for food aid deliveries.

"When it comes to suppressing piracy, an extra 10 or 11 ships is still not a huge amount of naval presence for a very large area," said Roger Middleton, consultant researcher for London-based think-tank Chatham House.

The new deployments added to the foreign ships already operating off the coast of Somalia will eventually bring to between 20 and 25 the total number of warships patrolling the area's dangerous waters by the end of the year.

According to the International Maritime Bureau, Somali pirates have attacked more than 60 ships since the start of 2008, hijacked almost half of them and received millions of dollars in ransom money.

The hijacking on September 25 of a Ukrainian cargo loaded with battle tanks and other weaponry captured the world's attention and may have sped up international action.

But pirates have expanded their activities to the eastern coast and the Indian Ocean and foreign warships will already have their hands full trying to secure a maritime corridor in the Gulf of Aden.

"If there is sufficient coordination between all these foreign actors, it can act as a deterrent but it's definitely not the death knell of Somali piracy," Middleton told AFP.

Western navies with modern equipment are already stretched by conflicts elsewhere in the world and experts argue the number of foreign warships tasked with patrolling Somalia's waters is unlikely to increase significantly in 2009.

Many observers argue sending ships is a band-aid approach which fails to look at the root causes of the phenomenon.

Most pirate groups operate from the coast of Puntland, a lawless breakaway state in northern Somalia. Observers say ineffective security forces there and poverty have allowed piracy to flourish.

In the 17th century, Haiti's French governor brought hundreds of prostitutes to the famous pirate lair of Tortuga in a bid to tame the island's troublesome buccaneers.

Such a move is hardly an option in modern-day Somalia and France has markedly changed tactics since, being the only country so far to have used its military firepower against the pirates.

But that approach is reserved for those countries with strong intervention capabilities, raises awkward questions with regard to international law and is often neutralised by the risk posed to hostages.

"Sending warships can only have a limited effect... one of the best ways of combating piracy would be to stop the decline of Puntland," said Stig Jarle Hansen, a Somalia expert with the Denmark-based Risk Intelligence group.

Hansen argues that not only is there no evidence of ties between pirates and Somalia's Islamist Shebab organisation, which has been fighting the country's government, but the Islamists were more effective than most in combating piracy.

A 2006 Ethiopian invasion to oust the Islamic Courts Union that had taken control of much of the country and support a fragile transitional government had a major impact on the surge in piracy.

"Before the invasion, the Shebab were probably the best pirate fighters the country has known," said Hansen, also a senior researcher with the Norwegian Institute for Urban and regional Research.

However there are signs that major foreign players could seek to address some of the root causes and are mulling a "naval peacekeeping force" that also tackles illegal fishing and waste dumping in Somali waters, two issues that are often used as justifications by pirates.

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Spanish plane prevents Gulf of Aden pirate attack: ministry
29 October 2008
Agence France Presse

A Spanish maritime patrol aircraft prevented pirates from attacking an oil tanker in the troubled waters of the Gulf of Aden, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

The P-3 Orion aircraft received a call for help from the crew of the Panama-flagged Leander on Tuesday who said pirates on two boats were trying to board their vessel when it was about 130 miles (210 kilometres) north of the coast of Somalia, it said.

"To deter the pirates, the plane flew over the hostile boats three times and launched a smoke bomb at them each time," the statement said.

"After the third launch, the crew of the P-3 noticed that the boats gave up their attempt to board and separated themselves from the oil tanker," it added.

The aircraft was on a routine patrol of the area when it received the call for help.

Spain dispatched the aircraft and a crew of 90 soldiers to Djibouti last month to collect information on the movement of pirate ships in the area as part of European Union efforts to boost security there.

The waters off Somalia, including the Gulf of Aden, are the world's most dangerous, accounting for 63 of the 199 reported pirate attacks worldwide so far this year, the International Maritime Bureau said last week.

A fleet of 30 Spanish tuna trawlers operates in the waters near Somalia.

In April, the 26 crew members of the Spanish fishing vessel Playa de Bakio were released after being held for six days.

The government has not confirmed reports that the pirates were paid a ransom of 1.2 million dollars (770,000 euros).

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INTERVIEW-Navies must target pirate 'mother ships' off Somalia

LONDON, Oct 30 (Reuters) - International naval forces operating off the coast of Somalia must be prepared to take on pirate 'mother ships' if they are to stem rampant piracy, a senior maritime official said on Thursday.

"We want pre-emptive action against the mother ships before the pirates carry out a hijacking," said Captain Pottengal Mukundan, director of the London-based International Maritime Bureau, which monitors international piracy, referring to the ships pirates use as bases from which to launch attacks.

"The positions of the mother ships are generally known. What we would like to see is the naval vessels going to interdict them, searching them and removing any arms on board.

"That would at least force the pirates to go back to Somalia to pick up more arms before they could come back again," he told Reuters in an interview.

U.S., European and Russian navy ships, including a fleet operating under NATO, have moved into the Gulf of Aden in recent days to try to stem the piracy threat and protect some of the 20,000 merchant vessels that use the waterway each year.

Around 60 vessels have been seized by pirates this year, with an estimated $18-30 million paid in ransom for the release of crews and ships. A Turkish vessel with 20 crew on board was seized on Wednesday.

But the laws governing what navies can do to take on the pirates are complex. Only if pirates are caught in the act of piracy -- actually boarding a ship and seizing it -- can a naval ship intervene with the full force of international law.

Arriving 30 minutes after a vessel has been boarded, when there is a degree of uncertainty over whether those on board are pirates or not, is often too late, experts say. Denmark recently had to return some suspected pirates to Somalia because it couldn't prove they were pirates after they were seized.

So fuzzy are the laws that the U.S. admiral commanding the NATO fleet was not sure what his rules of engagement would be just days before he left to take up his command this month.

Mukundan said there were currently about four 'mother ships' -- seized dhows or other larger fishing boats anchored near international waters -- being used by pirates.

The pirates live on the mother ships, storing arms, fuel and other supplies on board, and then target ships, which can include fuel tankers, by catching up to them in high-speed boats and boarding them with rope ladders while heavily armed.

Mukundan acknowledged the legalities of taking on 'mother ships' were tricky, but said it could be done if governments gave their naval forces instructions to do it.

"Our position is that this is a major world waterway and it needs to be protected. The only people that can protect it are the naval forces operating in the area.

"They need to have the direction from their government to do it," he said. "At the end of the day, it depends upon the instructions given to naval commanders on the water by their governments."

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Pirates demand ransom for Turkish vessel: company
4 November 2008
Agence France Presse

The pirates who captured a Turkish-owned ship off Somalia last week have demanded ransom in return for the release of the vessel and its 20-man crew, a company representative said Tuesday.

"The pirates contacted us and demanded ransom. The amount of the ransom was specified," Fehmi Ulgener, a legal advisor for the Istanbul-based Yasa company, said on NTV television, declining to reveal the sum the hijackers sought.

The company is considering what action to take, he said, adding that similar incidents off Somalia recently suggest that the pirates would allow them about two months to resolve the issue.

The M/V Yasa Neslihan, sailing under the Marshall Islands flag, was seized last Wednesday in the Gulf of Aden, with 20 Turkish crewmen on board. It was transporting 77,000 tonnes of iron ore from Canada to China.

The Ankara government has requested help from a NATO naval force, including also a Turkish warship, which launched operations in the area last month to protect ships from pirates.

Piracy is rife and well organised in the area where Somalia's northeastern tip juts into the Indian Ocean, preying on a key maritime route leading to the Suez Canal.

The pirates operate high-powered speedboats and are heavily armed, sometimes holding ships for weeks until they are released for large ransoms paid by governments or owners.

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Somali pirates hijack Danish-operated ship with 13 crew

COPENHAGEN, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Somali pirates have hijacked a ship with 13 crew members on board in the Gulf of Aden, the ship's Danish operator said on Saturday.

Most of the crew members are Russian and are unharmed, the Danish company Clipper Group said.

"Clipper is in close communication with the relevant authorities to ensure the safety of crew and to establish contact with the hijackers," the company said.

The ship, CEC Future, is a general cargo vessel built in 1994 in Denmark and is now sailing under a Bahamian flag.

Piracy is rife off Somalia, which has been mired in anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre in 1991.

The vital sealane in the Arabian Sea between Yemen and Somalia links the Middle East Gulf and Asia to Europe and beyond via the Suez Canal and is critical to Gulf oil shipments.

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SKorea plans to send destroyer to Somalia: report
13 November 2008
Agence France Presse

South Korea plans to send a destroyer to the lawless waters off Somalia, where several of its merchant ships have been hijacked by pirates, a report said Thursday.

Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed senior official as saying the government would seek parliamentary approval for the deployment during its current session, which ends on December 8.

"The South Korean warship, if dispatched, will cooperate with the US 5th Fleet in Oman and the French navy in Djibouti," the official was quoted as saying.

The ship would be loaded with missiles and other weaponry and accompanied by Navy special forces in case of an emergency situation, the official said.

The defence ministry declined to confirm the report saying consultations were still under way with other government agencies.

A governmental team reviewed the situation off Somalia after pirates seized a South Korean cargo ship and 22 sailors on September 10. The sailors were released last month after the ship's owner paid a ransom.

The waters off Somalia are considered the world's most dangerous for piracy. The International Maritime Bureau reported more than 24 attacks in the area between April and June alone.

Maritime experts say many attacks go unreported along the 3,700 kilometres (2,300 miles) of largely unpatrolled coast. Pirates operate high-powered speedboats and carry heavy machine guns and rocket launchers.

A South Korean tuna ship with 25 crew on board was hijacked by Somali pirates in April 2006. The ship and its crew were released after four months following the payment of a ransom.

Last year Somali pirates seized two South Korean vessels and 24 crew including four South Koreans.

The crew were released in November after six months in captivity. Local media reports said the pirates had demanded a ransom of five million dollars before reducing the sum to an undisclosed figure.

A Turkish-flagged tanker with a 14-man crew became the latest victim of the pirates when it was hijacked off Yemen on Wednesday,

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FACTBOX-Somali pirates risk choking key world trade route

Nov 14 (Reuters) - Somali pirates are causing havoc in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, which connects Europe to Asia and the Middle East via the Suez Canal.

Piracy off the Horn of Africa has been a problem for years, but daily attacks are now forcing shippers to seek alternative routes. Here are some facts about how the wave of attacks is threatening international seaborne trade.

* WHAT IS THE IMPACT?

-- Major operators of the world's merchant fleet -- carrying some 90 percent of the world's traded goods by volume -- are seriously considering by-passing the Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal altogether.

-- Industry experts say the alternative trade route, round South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, would add some three weeks or more to a typical journey, pushing up costs for goods.

-- Two well-known shipping firms, one that specializes in gas and the other the world's largest tug operator Svitzer, are already routing their vessels via the Cape of Good Hope.

-- Millions of tonnes of crude oil, petroleum products, gas and dry commodities like grains, iron ore and coal, as well as containerised goods from Hi-Fis to toys are ferried through the Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal every month.

* WHERE IS THE GULF OF ADEN?

-- The Gulf of Aden is located in the Middle East with Yemen to the north, Somalia to the south and the Arabian Sea to the east. It is connected to the Red Sea by the Bab el Mandab strait. Somalia has been stuck in civil conflict for 17 years.

* WHAT PASSES THROUGH?

-- Exports from the Gulf and Asia to the West must pass through Bab el-Mandab before entering the Suez Canal. Nearly 20,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year, heading to and from the Suez Canal.

-- The Bab el-Mandab passage handles around 3.3 million barrels per day of oil en route to the Canal and the Sumed Pipeline discharging in the Mediterranean for onward shipment to markets in Europe and the United States.

-- Seven percent of world oil consumption passed through the Gulf of Aden in 2007, according to Lloyd's Marine Intelligence Unit.

-- Around 30 percent of Europe's oil goes through the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea.

-- Some 17 tankers transit the Gulf of Aden every day carrying about 6 million barrels per day of crude and petroleum products.

-- The total volume of crude and petroleum products voyaging westbound through the Gulf of Aden represents 18 percent of the United States and Europe's combined oil import volume.

-- Liquefied natural gas exports from Qatar and Algeria pass through the Gulf of Aden en route to consumers in the West and in Asia. The largest class of gas carrier transiting the area carries enough gas to heat 4.5 million British homes.

-- The Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal are the main trade routes for dry commodities and containerised cargo -- manufactured goods -- between Asia, Europe and the Americas.

-- The Suez Canal is the third major source of income for Egypt.

* REGIONAL SECURITY:

-- Intelligence sources say three suspicious trawlers are now in the Gulf of Aden and are believed to be pirate mother vessels looking to attack and hijack ships.

-- The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said a total of 199 incidents of piracy or attempted piracy were reported worldwide during January-September, of which 63 were in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somali coast.

-- Recent attacks have brought the anti-terrorist Combined Task Force 150 into action. The multinational unit, part of Washington's Operation Enduring Freedom, is based in Djibouti and has come to the aid of many ships attacked by pirates.

-- In late August, it announced a string of waypoints marking a Maritime Security Patrol Area or safe corridor, which warships will patrol while coalition aircraft fly overhead.

-- While there is no formal agreement between the coalition and other navies, they have been communicating with each other and sharing information to more effectively patrol the area.

-- The British navy killed two pirates this week after the attempted hijacking of a Danish vessel. Britain's HMS Cumberland was joined in action by a Russian frigate. French ships have also engaged pirates in recent months, killing some, capturing others and freeing hostages.

Sources: Reuters/EIA www.eia.gov/BIMCO, Lloyd's Marine Intelligence Unit, GlobalSecurity/Ministry of Defence/International Maritime Bureau.

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No Nintendo game this Xmas? Blame Somali pirates

LONDON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Alarmed at the growing number of attacks off Somalia, international merchant shipping is edging closer to doing the unthinkable in peace time: by-passing one of world's most vital trade routes.

Somali pirates have been plundering ships off the Horn of Africa for years, but the recent surge in attacks has spilled out into the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, threatening access to the Suez Canal.

Now big firms employed in moving everything from oil, gas and coal to toys, are urgently considering whether to travel round South Africa's Cape of Good Hope instead.

"Despite all the publicity over piracy it will really hit home when consumers in the West find they haven't got their Nintendo gifts this Christmas," said Sam Dawson of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF).

"If there isn't a let up and active intervention by navies in the region, the impact on trade will come within weeks or months because we've gone from one attack every couple of weeks to four in a single day," he said.

"These attacks are no longer 50 to 100 miles off Somalia they are 200 miles (320 km) plus off the coast... this is not just guys in little fishing boats anymore. We know there are three probably ex-Soviet trawlers acting as mother ships," Dawson said.

The Gulf of Aden, where many of the attacks are occurring, connects Europe to the Middle East and Asia via the Suez Canal.

The alternative voyage round the Cape of Good Hope would add upwards of three weeks to a typical journey, delaying goods to buyers and increasing transport costs.

Although foreign navies have sent ships to the region and have begun taking tougher action against pirates -- the British navy killed two this week -- seizures of ships have continued.

Aid shipments to war-battered Somalia itself are among those that have been affected. A Chinese fishing boat was seized by pirates off Kenya late on Thursday and ordered to Somali waters.

TRADE CRISIS BREWING?

Industry experts, representing trade across all goods and resources, say the problem is coming to a head.

Giles Noakes, chief maritime security officer at BIMCO, a big industry association, said two operators, one a gas carrier and a tug operator Svitzer, a maritime logistics group, were already routing their fleets via the Cape.

Noakes said the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) carrier took the decision after it had two ships hijacked in the space of a few days.

"LPG is particularly combustible, you fire an RPG-7 in to one of those tankers and it will go bang," he said, referring to the type of anti tank grenade launcher used by the pirates.

"The next group that I expect to be going round the Cape are the big dry bulkers -- carriers of coal, grains and iron ore -- who also cruise at lower speeds," Noakes said.

The world's oil industry too is watching events closely, though no tanker owners have so far publicly declared they are circumventing Suez.

"Some tanker owners, charterers, are making a decision not to put their tankers in that direction," said Bill Box a spokesman for oil tanker industry group Intertanko.

He said that rather than ballasting back through Suez operators whose ships come free in the Mediterranean say, would rather continue trading in the Atlantic-basin, than return to Asia.

"And they are doing that because they are thinking about the safety of their staff and the risks involved," Box said.

[Amuse2000]

these pirates are a nuisance

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Piracy - a growing threat off Somalia's shores
19 November 2008
Agence France Presse

The capture of the Saudi oil supertanker Sirius Star last weekend marks a new stage in piracy off Somalia's coast, where acts of banditry have reached record levels since the start of the year.

According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), 94 ships have been attacked in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden this year.

The pirates have seized 38 ships, of which 17 are still in their hands, with 250 crew members aboard.

Between November 10 and 16 alone, 11 attacks have been registered in the region, according to the IMB.

In 2007, out of the 198 attacks on ships registered, only 26 were blamed on Somali pirates.

The 3,700 kilometres (2,300 miles) of coast in Somalia, which has been mired by unrest since 1991, are the most dangerous in the world.

Piracy has been endemic for years in the area, but it has changed in scale and scope and is no longer like it was in the 1980s, when simple fishermen were involved.

The fishermen robbed the crews of foreign ships fishing illegally in Somali waters.

Acts of piracy in this zone were almost wiped out in mid-2006 when the Islamic Courts Union controlled the centre and south of Somalia. But the pirates quickly resumed their lucrative activities after the fall of the Islamists at the end of December 2006.

In 2008, the month of April was marked by several spectacular acts of piracy, notably the attack on the French luxury yacht, the Ponant with some 30 passengers on board, and a rocket attack on the 150,000-tonne Japanese oil tanker, Takayama.

In September the pirates seized weaponry when they attacked the Ukrainian ship, MV Faina, which was carrying 33 assault tanks, anti-air defence systems and rocket launchers.

On October 1, four ships were attacked on the same day off the coasts of Somalia and managed to escape their attackers. It was the biggest number of attacks in a single day.

While the pirates have operated up to now in the Gulf of Aden, they showed that they could threaten traffic on a second major international shipping route from the Gulf towards the Cape of Good Hope with the capture in the Indian Ocean of the Sirius Star.

Since the Sirius Star, the pirates have seized three more ships off Somalia: a Thai trawler, a cargo ship registered in Hong Kong and a Greek bulk carrier.

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FACTBOX-Ships held by Somali pirates

Nov 19 (Reuters) - Somali pirates have seized at least 36 ships this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau. At least 14 ships with 243 crew are still held, including Saudi tanker Sirius Star, the biggest ship ever hijacked.

Below are some of the ships believed to be held:

CENTAURI: Seized Sept. 17. Had 26 Filipino sailors on board. It was attacked off Somalia by pirates in a speed boat, armed with three rocket launchers.

CAPT. STEPHANOS: Seized Sept. 21. The freighter was flying the Bahamas flag. It was carrying a cargo of coal and has 17 Filipinos, one Chinese and a Ukrainian aboard.

FAINA: Seized Sept. 24. The ship was carrying 33 T-72 tanks, grenade launchers and ammunition destined for Kenya's Mombasa port. Pirates have demanded $20 million in ransom.

AFRICAN SANDERLING: Seized Oct. 15. The Panama-flagged, Japanese-operated, and Korea-owned bulk carrier has 21 Filipino crew aboard.

STOLT STRENGTH: Seized Nov. 10. The chemical tanker with 23 Filipino crew aboard was hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. It was carrying 23,818 tonnes of oil products

THE KARAGOL: Seized Nov. 12. The Turkish ship with 14 crew, was hijacked off Yemen. It was transporting more than 4,000 tonnes of chemicals to the port of Bombay.

TIANYU 8: Seized Nov. 13/14. The Chinese fishing boat was reported seized off Kenya. The crew included 15 Chinese, one Taiwanese, one Japanese, three Filipinos and four Vietnamese.

CHEMSTAR VENUS: Seized Nov. 15. The combined chemical and oil tanker was travelling from Dumai, Indonesia to the Ukraine. It had 18 Filipino and five South Korean crew.

SIRIUS STAR: Seized Nov. 15. The Saudi supertanker, the biggest ship ever hijacked, held as much as 2 million barrels of oil. Captured off east Africa, it had 25 crew from Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.

THE DELIGHT: Seized. Nov. 18. The Hong Kong-flagged ship with 25 crew aboard is loaded with 36,000 tonnes of wheat bound for Iran. It was captured off the coast of Yemen.

Sources: Reuters/International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Centre/Lloyds List/Inquirer.net

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Pirates thwarted with MP3 sonic blast
21 November 2008
Agence France Presse

Gone are the swashbuckling days of repelling pirates with cutlasses -- a British firm is spearheading use of a high-tech "sonic laser" to beat bandits on the high seas.

The piracy problems of shipping firms running through the Gulf of Aden and down Africa's east coast have been thrown into the spotlight this week by the seizure of the Saudi Arabian super-tanker Sirius Star.

But help could be at hand in the form of a long range acoustic device (LRAD) -- hooked up to a humble MP3 player.

About the size of a domestic satellite dish, LRADs blast the target with a precise beam of sound -- warning messages, noises, sirens -- which can be turned up to excruciatingly painful levels should an attacker get too close.

British private firm Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions (APMSS) hires out three-man teams of ex-military personnel bearing LRADs on ships and has been inundated with work as the piracy problem off Somalia worsens.

"You'll be in absolute agony," APMSS chief executive Nick Davis, a 38-year-old ex-army man, told AFP.

"They're loudhailers that are coupled up to an MP3 player.

"It's very effective up to 1,000 metres and excruciating if you get within 100 to 200 metres if it's at full power. It would give you more or less permanent hearing damage."

With close to 100 attacks on ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean this year, pirates pose an increasing threat to international trade.

Heavily in demand, APMSS will have its full complement of 10 three-man security teams operating on ships in the Gulf of Aden next week.

Hiring a team with all the equipment for a three-day journey costs around 14,000 pounds (21,00 dollars, 16,500 euros) inclusive of insurance and travel costs.

Davis said his firm uses a "non-lethal approach", adding: "but you've got to get very close to lethal for it to be an effective deterrent".

"The operator can point the dish towards the incoming pirate boats and initially give them warning tones and then messages to make their intentions clear.

"If they continue coming, they give them a warning in their native language," he said.

An APMSS crew thwarted a pirate attack on a chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden last Thursday, just 15 miles (24 kilometres) off the Yemeni coast.

Three skiffs hurtled towards the vessel, but were spotted by the team at five miles away, triggering a full response with evasive manoeuvres, water cannon, an alert to coalition forces -- and the LRAD.

"At two miles they sounded the general alarm. The pirates slowed down at around 600 metres and continued to 400 metres, waving AK47s," Davis said.

But the sonic blast put them off.

"The pirates then turned away and went to the vessel without security that was three to four miles behind ours," he said.

"They fired against the vessel, by which time, luckily, the French navy were only 40 miles away. A Lynx helicopter was dispatched and when the pirates saw that they diverted towards the Yemeni beach.

"That attack was foiled. A good encounter."

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Somali pirates wallow in cash, leave no bank trail

LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Tens of millions of dollars extorted from ship owners by Somali pirates are immune from interception and seizure because they are pouring into the economy of a nation with no effective government or policing.

International crime gangs normally have to "launder" their proceeds through the financial system to make them appear like legitimate funds, thereby creating a money trail that can make them vulnerable to detection.

But financial experts say this is not the case in Somalia, an archetypal "failed state" which has no strong central authority, no formal banking system, and has known nothing but civil war for nearly two decades.

Pirates who seized the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star and its $100 million oil cargo last weekend in the biggest ship hijack in history have already made tens of millions, in cash, from scores of previous attacks this year.

"They live like monarchs, like kings. They do everything in public, without the need to hide or disguise the source of money," said Hany Aby-El-Fotouh, an Egyptian banker and anti-moneylaundering specialist.

"The money is there, bulk cash. The local government doesn't mind, or doesn't have the authority to object, to control ... All dirty deals are paid in cash," he said, referring to the pirates' purchases of arms, communications gear, speedboats and other equipment.

"There is no need for them to launder the money, because the law enforcement is not there at all, the banking system is not there, so why even think of laundering money?"

RANSOM BOOM

Pirate activity has grown into a small but profitable industry in one of the world's poorest countries.

"Apart from those who take part in the operations, who currently number more than 1,000, there are those who provide services ranging from negotiations with ship owners, procurement of weapons, training of pirates, information gathering, logistics and so on," said Ismail Ahmed, a British expert with 20 years' experience of Somali financial and development issues.

He was sceptical of suggestions that some funds may be laundered via the Gulf, saying the pirates kept their money inside Somalia because they knew it would be intercepted if they moved it outside the country.

"Some invest in land and property in their home towns where they know that they would never be prosecuted," Ahmed said.

"All the towns in the area are booming ... Ransom money 'trickles down' to many people in the towns. This is one of the reasons why local people support it."

Michael Weinstein, a Somalia expert at Purdue University in the U.S. state of Indiana, said the trigger for the escalation of pirate attacks had been the collapse of the local economy in Somalia's Puntland region.

"The administration there is honeycombed with corrupt officials that have links to the pirates," Weinstein said. He said the government had no funds to pay its military, and the economy was beset by hyperinflation because of massive over-printing of Somali shillings. Ahmed said the local economy now runs on dollars, with shillings used only for small change.

Experts said that while the pirates may enjoy tacit support from Somalia's leading Islamist group, al Shabaab, their motive is profit, not terrorism, and there is no evidence that they are linked to al Qaeda.

The U.S. Treasury announced on Thursday new anti-terrorism sanctions against three al Shabaab leaders but did not link the move to the surge in pirate activity.

Al Qaeda, which has conducted at least two major attacks at sea, may however watch the hijack dramas with keen interest.

A militant supporter wrote in a message to Internet forums this week, monitored by the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, that the crisis was drawing Western navies to the seas off East Africa where they would be easy meat for al Qaeda attacks.

"The enemies of al Qaeda ... will swallow the bait and come to the area in which al Qaeda has woven its nets," he wrote. "At that time, al Qaeda will settle scores with America and its allies by striking their ships or sinking them."

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Iran says hijacked ship and crew safe
20 November 2008
Agence France Presse

Iran made contact on Thursday with a hijacked Hong Kong-registered cargo ship it had chartered and said all 25 crew members were safe and sound, the state IRNA news agency reported.

"Around Thursday noon the first contact was made with the 'Delight' after its hijacking and fortunately all its crew are safe and sound," the urgent reaction committee of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines said.

"The urgent reaction committee along with concerned officials will make efforts to release the ship and its 25 crew members," a statement added, without providing further details.

The Delight was carrying 36,000 tonnes of wheat when it was attacked on Tuesday in the Gulf of Aden as it headed for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, maritime officials said.

In October, Iran paid ransom to gain release of a merchant vessel hijacked off the Somali coast two months earlier.

This year, Somali pirates have attacked 90 ships, more than double the number in 2007, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Pirates are still holding 16 ships and more than 250 sailors.

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Belgium's Exmar says ransoms encourage piracy

BRUSSELS, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Shipping companies that quietly pay pirates' ransoms to recover crew and cargo are only spurring more hijackings, the chief executive of leading Belgian shipping company Exmar said.

"As long as democracy will give in on this kind of blackmail, we'll never have a solution," said CEO Nicolas Saverys, whose company ships 40 percent of the world's seaborne ammonia and 10 percent of its liquefied petroleum gas.

Although they are loath to declare it, shipping firms -- via their insurance companies -- have paid between $35 million and $40 million in ransoms to pirates in 2008 so far, according to an estimate by Roger Middleton, a Somalia expert with London's Chatham House think-tank.

Saverys did not specify whether Exmar buys insurance to cover hijackings, but said he understands why many firms do. However deterrents, not payouts, are the only real solution, he told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday.

Tankers like Exmar's, laden with valuable petrochemicals, are the most attractive to the cash-hungry Somali pirates operating in the treacherous Gulf of Aden.

The gulf, on the route between Europe and Asia, is one of the world's busiest shipping corridors, but has been plagued by a rash of armed buccaneers this year.

While Exmar's insurance premiums have yet to rise exceptionally as a result of the crime wave, the firm lost around $100,000 because one of its vessels, meant to pass through the Gulf of Aden, was delayed for three days while awaiting a protective NATO-organised naval convoy, Saverys said.

"If the international community would act much more unanimously and much more strongly against these acts of piracy, they would disappear," Saverys said.

The Belgian native, whose family has been in the maritime industry since 1828, said that instead of insurance payouts, he would prefer a return to the practices of past centuries, when pirates were hunted.

"I'm not saying we should do it in that way of course, the guy should receive a fair trial, but if he has participated in the act of piracy, he should be punished," said Saverys.

"It is for each country to make its own decisions" regarding responses to ransom demands, said Lee Adamson, a spokesman for the United Nations' International Maritime Organization.

The IMO estimated that there have been more than 120 acts of piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia so far this year.

At least 14 ships and 243 crew are still under pirate control, including the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, the biggest tanker ever hijacked, which held as much as 2 million barrels of oil worth $100 million.

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Somali piracy stirs fear among Russian sailors
29 November 2008
Agence France Presse

The surge in piracy near the coast of Somalia has created unease in far-off Russia, where sailors say they feel helpless as a growing number of mariners are taken hostage in brazen attacks.

"Sailors are completely defenceless against them," said Alexei Ponomaroyov, a retired ship mechanic from the northern Russian port of Arkhangelsk with over 30 years of sailing experience, including in the Indian Ocean.

"All we can do is send out an SOS," he told AFP by telephone.

Pointing out that international law requires cargo crews to be unarmed, he said: "How are we merchant sailors supposed to protect ourselves? They come with machine guns in their speedboats."

Five sailors from Arkhangelsk were among the hostages taken this month along with the CEC Future, a Danish-operated cargo ship, according to the Russian Sailors' Union.

Arkhangelsk is an often ice-bound port in the far north of Russia where many sailors have gone to work for Western shipping companies since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Hundreds of sailors are currently being held hostage on the Somali coast, with the largest number coming from Asian countries like the Philippines.

But there are also dozens from Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states, including 21 from the MV Faina, a Ukrainian ship loaded with combat tanks that pirates seized in September in one of their highest-profile captures to date.

That has ex-Soviet sailors worried, said Igor Kovalchuk, vice president of the Russian Sailors' Union.

"Sailors are a fairly courageous lot," he said. "But on the other hand, this region is distinctly dangerous today, in the most direct sense of the word. It is dangerous for their life and health."

Kovalchuk said that he had received phone calls from sailors worried about piracy. "Unfortunately there is nothing to tell them, and people have to work under the existing conditions," he said.

Sailors' advocates praised recent international efforts to fight the problem but insisted that more needed to be done.

"There is no unified command centre. There is no united plan for dealing with the problem," said Mikhail Voitenko, editor of Sovfracht Maritime Bulletin, a Russian website that monitors the shipping industry.

"Basically, there is nothing," he said.

At least one Russian sailor is taking matters into his own hands, according to The Sunday Times of London.

The newspaper reported last month that billionaire Roman Abramovich, owner of London's Chelsea football club, is having his next yacht outfitted with anti-pirate measures including a missile detection system, bulletproof windows and even an escape submarine.

Less affluent sailors will have to rely on a contingent of US, Russian and European warships that have been dispatched to the region near Somalia in recent months.

Voitenko wryly noted that world leaders vowed to boost efforts against piracy only after increasing attacks -- including the capture of a Saudi oil tanker two weeks ago -- began to take a noticeable economic toll.

"The international community is finally beginning to do something now that it has affected the world economy," he said.

Developed nations are also insulated from the problem because most merchant sailors no longer come from the affluent West. Most, especially rank-and-file crew members, are from poorer countries.

"The higher the standard of living somewhere, the less people are drawn to this fairly dangerous profession, the separation from one's family and various dangers, including pirates," Kovalchuk said.

"It is a truly dangerous career."

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Pirates fire on US cruise ship in failed hijack attempt; ship speeds up, outruns bandits
2 December 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Pirates chased and shot at a U.S. cruise ship with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel as it sailed along a corridor patrolled by international warships, a maritime official said Tuesday.

The M/S Nautica, carrying 656 international passengers and 399 crew members, was sailing through the Gulf of Aden on Sunday when it encountered six bandits in two speedboats, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Malaysia.

The pirates fired at the passenger liner but the larger ship was faster than the pirates' vessels, Choong said.

"It is very fortunate that the liner managed to escape," he said, urging all ships to remain vigilant in the area.

The International Maritime Bureau, which fights maritime crime, did not know how many cruise liners use these waters, where hijacking of freighters and tankers has become a constant threat in spite of patrols by an international flotilla.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said it was aware of this failed hijacking but had no further details.

"When the pirates were sighted, the captain went on the public address system and asked passengers to remain in the interior spaces of the ship and wait until he gave further instructions," said Tim Rubacky, spokesman for Oceania Cruises, Inc. "Within five minutes, it was over," he said.

In a statement on its Web site, Oceania said pirates fired eight rifle shots at the liner, but that the ship's captain increased speed and managed to outrun the skiffs.

All passengers and crew are safe and there was no damage to the vessel, it said.

The Nautica was on a 32-day cruise from Rome to Singapore, with stops at ports in Italy, Egypt, Oman, Dubai, India, Malaysia and Thailand, the Web site said. Based on that schedule, the liner was headed from Egypt to Oman when it was attacked.

The liner arrived in the southern Oman port city of Salalah on Monday morning, and the passengers toured the city before leaving for the capital, Muscat, Monday evening, an official of the Oman Tourism Ministry said Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

It is not the first time a cruise liner has been attacked. In 2005, pirates opened fire on the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles (160 kilometers) off the Somali coast. The faster cruise ship managed to escape, and used a long-range acoustic device -- which blasts a painful wave of sound -- to distract the pirates.

The International Maritime Bureau, in London, cited only the 2005 liner attack and a raid on the luxury yacht Le Ponant earlier this year as attacks on passenger vessels off Somalia.

International warships patrol the area and have created a security corridor in the region under a U.S.-led initiative, but attacks on shipping have not abated.

In about 100 attacks on ships off the Somali coast this year, 40 vessels have been hijacked, Choong said. Fourteen remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 250 crew members.

In two if the most daring attacks, pirates seized a Ukrainian freighter loaded with 33 battle tanks in September, and on Nov. 15, a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million worth of crude oil.

On Tuesday, a Somali pirate spokesman said his group will release the Ukrainian ship within the next two days.

Sugule Ali told The Associated Press by satellite phone on Tuesday a ransom agreement had been reached, but would not say how much. The pirates had originally asked for $20 million when they hijacked the MV Faina.

"Once we receive this payment, we will also make sure that all our colleagues on ship reach land safely, then the release will take place," Ali said. He was not afraid of warships intervening, he said.

"We know that the quantity of the equipment on the ship and the valuable lives we held hostage will help us remain onboard and get ransom."

NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday focused almost immediately on demands for NATO to act amid growing alarm over the attacks on shipping. The attacks have continued unabated despite a NATO naval mission over the past six weeks.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, and pirates have taken advantage of the country's lawlessness to launch attacks on foreign shipping from the Somali coast.

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Associated Press writers Katharine Houreld in Nairobi, Kenya, Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Saeed al-Nahdy in Muscat, Oman, contributed to this report.

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Islamist leader calls on pirates to free ships
2 December 2008
Agence France Presse

Somalia's insurgent Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys called on pirates Tuesday to immediately release a giant Saudi oil tanker and other foreign vessels being held in Somali waters.

"We are calling for the immediate release of all international vessels under the command of Somali pirates, who are undermining international peace and trade," Aweys told AFP from the Eritrean capital Asmara.

The pirates have demanded a 25 million dollar ransom for the 330-metre Sirius Star which was carrying two million barrels of crude oil and 25 crew when it was seized on November 15.

The tanker is one of more than a dozen foreign merchant vessels and their crew being held by gunmen on the lawless Somali coast.

A Greek bulk carried released last week reached the Kenyan port of Mombasa with its 26 Filipino crew on Tuesday.

The hardline cleric's appeal came a day after a Miami-based company said one of its cruise liners with 600 people aboard narrowly escaped being boarded by pirates as it crossed the Gulf of Aden at the weekend.

The brazen attempt on the Nautica underscored the growing audacity of the heavily-armed pirates despite the presence of an international naval force.

Leader of an umbrella opposition group called the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, Aweys said the pirates would have been stamped out if Somalia were still under the control of his Islamist group.

"We are the only force that could eliminate piracy in the Somalia waters but the world refused to give us the opportunity to rule Somalia, despite the will of the vast majority of the people of Somalia.

"If we are given the opportunity to fight piracy and general lawlessness we can do that comfortably. Piracy is part of lawlessness and during our months of Islamic leadership pirates were underground," he said.

His Islamic Courts Union ruled most of south and central Somalia for six months in 2006 before being ousted by Ethiopian forces who intervened to prop up its neighbour's weak central government.

The intervention of the influential cleric, designated a terrorist by Washington because of alleged ties to Al-Qaeda, is likely to bring some pressure to bear on the pirates, but he ruled out any direct mediation effort on the part of his organisation.

He said the pirates, also negotiating a multi-million-dollar r