"Pirates Seize 7 ****ps in 12 Days" (Latest From Iran)
By MOHAMED SHEIKH NOR and BARBARA SURK
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 18, 2008; 12:56 PM
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Somali pirates hijacked their seventh ****p in 12
days on Tuesday, as the U.S. Navy re****ted that pirates had seized an
Iranian cargo ****p in the Gulf of Aden.
U.S. Navy Commander Jane Campbell of the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said
the bulk cargo carrier was flying a Hong Kong flag but was operated by
the Islamic Republic of Iran ****pping Lines. The status of the crew or
the cargo was not known, she said.
Elsewhere, pirates anchored a hijacked Saudi supertanker loaded with
$100 million in crude oil off the Somali coast on Tuesday, causing
residents in impoverished fi****ng villages to gawk in amazement at the
size of the 1,080 foot (329 meter) tanker.
Pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia have surged recently, despite
the presence of NATO ****ps, U.S. war****ps and a Russian frigate all
working to prevent piracy in one of the world's busiest ****pping
lanes.
International Maritime Bureau on Sunday re****ted five hijackings since
Nov. 7, before the hijackings of the Saudi ****p or the Iranian ****p
were announced.
With few other options, ****powners in past piracy cases have ended up
paying ransoms for their ****ps, cargos and crew.
The U.S. and other naval forces decided against intervention for now.
NATO said it would not divert any of its three war****ps from the Gulf
of Aden and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet also said it did not expect to
send ****ps to try to intercept the Saudi supertanker, the MV Sirius
Star. The tanker was seized over the weekend about 450 nautical miles
off the Kenyan coast.
Never before have Somali pirates seized such a giant ****p so far out
to sea _ and never a vessel so large. The captors of the Sirius Star
anchored the ****p, with a full load of 2 million barrels of oil and 25
crew members, close to a main pirate den on the Somali coast,
Harardhere.
"As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I
saw a very, very large ****p anchored less than three miles off the
shore," said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman in Harardhere.
"I have been fi****ng here for three decades, but I have never seen a
****p as big as this one," he told The Associated Press in a telephone
interview. "There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a
glimpse of the large ****p."
He said two small boats floated out to the ****p and 18 men _
presumably other pirates _ climbed aboard with a rope ladder.
Spectators watched as a small boat carried food and qat, a narcotic
leaf popular in Somalia, to the supertanker.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called the hijacking "an
outrageous act" and said "piracy, like terrorism, is a disease which
is against everybody, and everybody must address it together."
Speaking during a visit to Athens on Tuesday, he said Saudi Arabia
would join an international initiative against piracy in the Red Sea
area, where more than 80 pirate attacks have taken place this year.
He did not elaborate on what steps the kingdom would take to better
protect its vital oil tankers. Saudi Arabia's French-equipped navy has
18,000-20,000 personnel, but has never taken part in any high-seas
fighting.
Meanwhile, the Norwegian ****pping group Odjell SE said it ordered its
more than 90 tankers to sail all the way around Africa to avoid the
risk of attack by Somali pirates. That means ****ps will go past South
Africa's Cape of Good Hope instead of taking the Suez Canal shortcut
through the Gulf of Aden.
"We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and
held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden," said Terje Storeng,
Odjell's president and chief executive.
Experts say the much longer journey adds 12 to 15 days to a tanker's
trip, at a cost of between $20,000-$30,000 a day.
Abdullkadir Musa, the deputy sea ****t minister in northern Somalia's
breakaway Puntland region, said if the ****p tries to anchor anywhere
near Eyl _ where the U.S. earlier said it was heading _ then his
forces will try to rescue it.
Forces from Puntland have sometimes confronted pirates, though
Somalia's weak central government, which is fighting Islamic
insurgents, has been unable to mount a response to increasing piracy.
Puntland forces, their guns blazing, freed a Panama-flagged cargo ****p
from pirates on Oct. 14.
The Dubai-based owner of the Saudi tanker, Vela International Marine
Ltd., said the oil tanker's 25 crew members "are believed to be safe."
The statement made no mention of a ransom or contacts with the
bandits.
The Sirius Star's cargo is worth about $100 million at current prices,
but the pirates have no known way to unload it from the tanker.
In Vienna, Ehsan Ul-Haq, chief analyst at JBC Energy, said the seizure
was not affecting oil prices, since traders were focused instead on
"the overall economy."
The U.S. Navy is still surrounding a Ukrainian ****p loaded with tanks
and other weaponry that was seized by pirates Sept. 25 off the Somali
coast.
___
[Surk contributed to this re****t from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP
writers Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu, Somalia, and Slobodan Lekic
in Brussels, Belgium contributed to this re****t.]
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111801167.html
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