Pirates' 'boldest strike'

2008-11-18 09:25

Nairobi - A Saudi supertanker hijacked by pirates with a $100m oil cargo in the largest ever such seizure has reached the coast of north Somalia, a regional maritime group said on Tuesday.

"Some people are saying they have spotted a huge vessel off Eyl. It must be the supertanker," Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Association, told Reuters.

He was referring to a remote coastal village used by Somali pirates who have been terrorising ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean this year. They have driven up insurance costs, forced some firms to go round South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal, and secured millions of dollars in ransoms.

The capture of Sirius Star 450 nautical miles southeast of Kenya's Mombasa port, and way beyond the Gulf of Aden where most attacks have taken place this year, is their boldest strike.

The seizure was carried out despite an international naval response, including from the Nato alliance and European Union, to protect one of the world's busiest shipping areas.

"The world has never seen anything like this," added Mwangura, whose Mombasa-based group has been monitoring piracy for years. He said the pirates would probably keep the Sirius about eight miles off Eyl, which is heavily protected.

Mwangura, who bases information on shipping groups in the region plus relatives of both crew and pirates, said he believed a hijacked Nigerian tug was used as a "mother-ship".

Well-armed, sophisticated

"The supertanker was full loaded, so it was probably low in the water and not that difficult to board," he said, adding that the pirates probably used a ladder or hooked a rope to the side.

Normally, the increasingly well-armed and sophisticated Somali pirates use speedboats to carry out the attacks, with the mother ship as a base for their operations.

Mwangura said he believed the Somali pirates might have had help from others, possibly Nigerians and Yemenis, for this attack, given its distance from Somalia and the scale of the attack. However, he said he had no firm evidence of that.

The seizure of the Sirius, which is three times the size of an aircraft carrier, follows another spectacular strike earlier this year by the pirates when they captured a Ukrainian ship carrying 33 tanks and other military equipment.

They are still holding that vessel, and as about a dozen other hijacked ships, under close surveillance by US and other warships in the area.

(Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

- Reuters