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New Delhi : The Thai fishing company, which claims it lost a deep sea trawler Ekawatnava 5 and 14 crew members in the Gulf of Aden on November 18, today said a British warship backed off after seeing pirates had taken hostages on board but the vessel was sunk hours later by the Indian Navy without verifying the identity of the sailors. India, however, defended the action of INS Tabar with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee saying that international rules of engagement were followed by the Navy. “The ship was under the command of pirates. As per laws of the...

NAIROBI - SOMALI pirates have hijacked another vessel, a Yemen cargo ship, in the Gulf of Aden, a regional maritime official said on Tuesday. Mr Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, identified the vessel as the MV Amani, but no other details were immediately available. Word of the latest attack at sea came 10 days after gunmen from Somalia seized a Saudi supertanker in the largest hijacking in maritime history. The Nov 15 capture of the Sirius Star - with US$100 million (S$151.6 million) of oil and 25 crew members from Britain, Poland, Croatia, Saudi...

"Sir, you have done India proud." That was how the anchorman of a television channel in Delhi addressed the Indian navy chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, on the victorious sea battle by warship INS Tabar with would-be hijackers as dusk was falling on Tuesday evening in the Gulf of Aden. Those words would have made Sir Francis Drake, the 16th-century British navigator and slaver-politician of the Elizabethan era, truly envious. Sir Francis had bigger claims to fame in a life cut short by dysentery while attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1595. Unsurprisingly, the patriotic Indian media dutifully expressed its gratitude...

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...

Armed Islamists will attack pirates, says militant Last Updated: Friday, November 21, 2008 | 3:08 PM ET A group of armed Islamist militants is reportedly headed to a Somali port Friday to attack pirates holding hostage a massive Saudi Arabian oil tanker.Ships belonging to Muslim countries should not be seized, Abdelghafar Musa, a fighter with the Islamist group al-Shabab, told the Associated Press. This undated picture taken at an unknown location shows the Saudi oil supertanker MV Sirius Star, which has been hijacked by Somali pirates. (Christian Duys/Associated Press)"We are really sorry to hear that the Saudi ship has...

ARLINGTON, Va. — To hell with pirates: The Defense Department isn’t going to re-route ships to avoid the Gulf of Aden. "We’re not going around the Cape of Good Hope," Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday. Several shipping companies this week announced they would do just that, in an effort to avoid pirates lurking in the waters off Somalia. But the U.S. government is not considering such an option for its ships. "Ultimately that’s not the solution to this," Morrell said. "And that, to me — in scenarios like that, the pirates win. And they should not be allowed...

The battle with pirates operating off the coast of Somalia grew yesterday when raiders seized two more ships but lost one of their own in an uneven firefight with the Indian Navy. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) described the situation yesterday as “out of control”. The surge in hijackings came as Saudi Arabia confirmed that a ransom demand had been made for the freeing of the Sirius Star supertanker, seized at the weekend with her crew of 25 and a cargo of oil worth $100 million (£65 million). Two more vessels – a Thai fishing boat with a crew of...

Possible terrorism in the making? http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=20202559&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

An Indian navy warship has sunk a Somali pirate "mother ship" in the Gulf of Aden, the world's most treacherous waterway, after the renegades threatened to attack the frigate.

An Indian navy warship has sunk a Somali pirate "mother ship" in the Gulf of Aden, the world's most treacherous waterway, after the renegades threatened to attack the frigate. The clash happened as pirates claimed to begin negotiations over a ransom for the Saudi super-tanker that was seized nearby on Saturday with two Britons aboard. The Sirius Star, which is carrying at least $100 million worth of oil, is the biggest ship ever to be hijacked. INS Tabar, an Indian frigate dispatched last month to the area to protect the country's merchant fleet, sighted the pirate vessel late on Tuesday....

NEW DELHI: In dramatic action on the high seas, an Indian warship with its armed helicopter and elite marine commandos repulsed in quick succession attempts made by different bands of gun-toting pirates to hijack a Saudi and a Mumbai-based merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia on Tuesday morning. INS Tabar, a Talwar-class guided-missile stealth frigate, was cruising in the Gulf of Aden at about 10 am when it got a frantic distress call from Saudi Arabian chemical and oil carrier NCC Tihama. Tihamas call said two to three high-speed boats, with several armed men, were trying to...

Indian navy sinks pirate “mother ship” in Gulf of Aden Late Tuesday, Nov. 18, after a Thai boat and Iranian cargo vessel were hijacked, the Indian navy’s Tabar stealth frigate fought back and destroyed a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden. It was described by the Indian navy as a mother vessel loaded with food, diesel and water, with two speed boats in tow. On the deck, were rocket-propelled grenade launchers and guns. The pirates threatened to blow up the Indian warship then opened fire. After destroying the pirate ship, the Tabar chased one of the speed boats, which...

SEOUL: A Japanese cargo ship was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia late on Saturday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted Seoul’s foreign ministry as saying on Sunday. The cargo ship was carrying 23 sailors, including five South Koreans, Yonhap said. Details on the pirates and the safety of the sailors were not immediately available, it said. Heavily armed Somali gunmen have seized more than 30 vessels so far this year, making the busy shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden the most dangerous in the world. South Korea is considering dispatching a naval ship to the area...

The Royal Navy described the boarding as 'compliant' Michael Evans, Defence Editor and Rob Crilly Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles. In the ensuing gunfight, two Somali pirates in a Yemeni-registered fishing dhow were killed, and a third pirate, believed to be a Yemeni, suffered injuries and subsequently died. It was the first time the Royal Navy had been engaged in a fatal shoot-out on the...

Expanding Afghan War Awaits New President An expanded U.S. military involvement awaits a new U.S. president in Afghanistan where the unfinished business of September 11 has flared over the past three years into a major insurgency. A raft of assessments and reviews now underway in Washington point to a fundamental rethinking of the Afghan war. But whoever is elected Tuesday will face choices on the size of the military buildup, how to strengthen the central government, how far to go in dealing with insurgent sanctuaries across the border, how to help stabilize Pakistan, and whether and how to reconcile...

Denmark's navy says pirates opened fire on a Danish tanker in a failed attempt to commandeer the ship off Somalia's coast. The navy says no crew members were wounded in the incident today in the Gulf of Aden. The pirates disappeared by the time a Danish navy helicopter arrived.

~snip~ It's bad news for shippers, but an opportunity for Blackwater Worldwide, the North Carolina-based private military contractor. Last week, the company announced plans to dispatch the MV MacArthur, a 183-foot vessel with a crew of 14 and a helicopter pad, to the Gulf of Aden to provide escort services for ships in need of security. "Billions of dollars of goods move through the Gulf of Aden each year," said Bill Matthews, executive vice president of Blackwater Worldwide, in a press release. "We have been contacted by ship owners who say they need our help in making sure those goods...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Tensions heated up on the high seas, as the French Navy captured nine pirates near the Gulf of Aden and a Somali pirate warned Thursday that the crew of a hijacked Ukrainian arms ship would be killed if NATO forces attacked. The French Navy intercepted the pirates in two small boats about 115 miles (185 kilometers) from the nearest coast, finding assault rifles, grenade-launchers, grappling hooks and ladders onboard. The nine were handed over Thursday to Somali officials, and French officials received assurances the prisoners would be treated according to international conventions. "We wanted to send...

VIRGINIA BEACH Blackbeard, meet Blackwater. Worldwide. The Moyock, N.C., company has a ship in Hampton Roads ready to begin patrolling the Gulf of Aden to protect merchant vessels against pirates. The company has spoken to about 10 shipping firms but as yet has no takers, said Bill Mathews, Blackwater Worldwide executive vice president. "There's definitely a need and a desire," Mathews said during a tour of the 183-foot vessel, named McArthur, on Friday. It's moored at a commercial pier at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base. Somali pirates in late September seized a Ukrainian ship loaded with military vehicles in the...

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15, 2008 (AFP) - 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.