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 16, and a bulk carrier, believed to be Greek, with an unknown number of people aboard – were seized by pirates in the Gulf of Aden yesterday, bringing the total to nine vessels in 12 days.

Late on Tuesday night the Indian frigate Tabar destroyed the raiders’ “mother ship” after coming under attack from pirates firing rocket-propelled grenades, the Indian Navy said. The confrontation was the first involving one of the vessels used by the pirates to extend their range. Shipping groups said that the loss of a vessel did not mean that the pirates’ activities would be curtailed. “The situation is already out of control,” said Noel Choong, head of the piracy reporting centre at the IMB in Kuala Lumpur. “With no strong deterrent, low risk to the pirates and high returns, the attacks will continue.”

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said yesterday that the Royal Navy was coordinating the European response to the supertanker’s seizure from its warship in the region, HMS Cumberland. Saudi Arabia has also pledged to join the international task force operating under a UN mandate, along with new pledges of ships from Sweden and South Korea.

Two British crewmen held hostage aboard theSirius Starwere named yesterday as chief engineer Peter French and second officer James Grady. Of the remaining crew, 19 are Filipino, 2 Polish, 1 Croatian and 1 Saudi.

The international furore over the hijack of the supertanker, the largest ship yet taken by pirates, may lead its captors to seek a swift resolution for fear of other intervention. However, the value of both vessel and cargo may also lead to drawn-out bargaining, as it has in the case of the Ukrainian arms ship seized in September. The Qatar-based Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera aired video yesterday of a purported middleman saying that negotiations had begun on board the tanker and on shore.

The Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said the ship’s owners, Vela International, had opened negotiations over a sum, although the company itself remained tight-lipped, citing the safety of the crew. The ship is moored off the Somali coast, close to the well-defended pirate haven of Eyl.

“I know that the owners of the tanker are negotiating on the issue,” the prince said. “We do not like to negotiate with either terrorists or hijackers, but the owners of the tankers are the final arbiters of what happens there.”

“We are going to join the task force that will try to eradicate this threat to international trade.”

The violence of the Indian confrontation on Tuesday night has raised alarm over the pirates’ growing audacity. An Indian Navy statement said the confrontation began when the Tabar approached the boat and spotted groups of men armed with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs.

“The INS Tabar closed in on the mother vessel and asked her to stop for investigation,” the statement said. “But on repeated calls, the vessel’s threatening response was that she would blow up the naval warship if it approached.”

An exchange of fire ensued and the navy ship opened up with heavy guns. “From what we see in photographs the pirate vessel is completely destroyed,” a senior naval officer said.

British Royal Navy Commodore Keith Winstanley, deputy commander of the Combined Maritime Forces in the Middle East, said he feared no amount of coalition forces would be sufficient to secure the 2.5 million sq nautical miles of the Gulf of Aden, let alone the Indian Ocean waters where the supertanker was seized. “The pirates will go somewhere we are not,” he said. “If we patrol the Gulf of Aden then they will go to Mogadishu. If we go to Mogadishu, they will go to the Gulf of Aden.”

Times Online

Mr. Ban “reiterates his condemnation of all acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea, wherever they occur,” according to a statement from his spokesperson, which was issued just days after heavily armed pirates hijacked a Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Indian navy is also reported to have sunk a suspected pirate ship.

The Secretary-General “strongly supports efforts by Member States to address this scourge,” the statement said, adding that he is working closely with Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), NATO, the European Union and others to ensure that international efforts to combat piracy are better coordinated.

“He welcomes the EU’s decision to authorize the deployment of a maritime force off the coast of Somalia, and the efforts of individual Member States to send vessels, which will strengthen security in the area.”

Later this week IMO Secretary-General Efthimios Mitropoulos is expected to brief the Security Council on the latest developments in the waters of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean off the Horn of Africa.

Naval escorts from the Netherlands and NATO are providing vital protection for UN World Food Programme (WFP) ships loaded with aid for Somalia, where millions depend on humanitarian aid because of conflict, drought and soaring food and fuel prices.

allAfrica.com:

The INS Tabar opened fire on a pirate “mother ship” after it came under attack, a government statement said.

There has been a surge in piracy incidents off Somalia.

The Saudi-owned Sirius Star supertanker is currently anchored off the Somali coast after the vessel and its 25 crew were seized by pirates.

Vela International, operators of the Sirius Star, told the BBC no demands had yet been received from the pirates. The company also said all the crew were safe.

The biggest tanker ever hijacked, Sirius Star is carrying a cargo of two million barrels – a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s daily output – worth more than $100m (£67m).

Explosions

India is among several countries are already patrolling the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The Indian navy said the Tabar spotted a pirate vessel while patrolling 285 nautical miles (528km) south-west of Salalah in Oman, on Tuesday evening.

When it demanded the vessel stop for investigation, the pirate ship responded by threatening to “blow up the naval warship if it closed on her”, the statement said.

The navy said the pirates on board were armed with guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers. They threatened to blow up the INS Tabar and then fired on it.

The Indians say they retaliated by opening fire and that there was an explosion on the pirate vessel, which sank.

“Fire broke out on the vessel and explosions were heard, possibly due to exploding ammunition that was stored in the vessel,” the Indian navy said.

Some of the pirates tried to escape on two speedboats – the Indian sailors gave chase but one boat was later found abandoned, while a second boat escaped.

The Tabar has been patrolling the Gulf of Aden since 23 October, and has escorted 35 ships safely during the “pirate-infested waters”, the statement said.

Last week, an helicopter-borne Indian marine commandos stopped pirates from boarding and hijacking an Indian merchant vessel.

Ransoms

On Tuesday, a cargo ship and a fishing vessel became the latest to join more than 90 civilian vessels attacked by the pirates this year.

A 25-crew cargo vessel transporting wheat to Iran was attacked in the Gulf of Aden while contact was lost with the crew of 12 on the fishing boat.

Piracy in the area is estimated to have cost up to $30m in ransoms so far this year, according to a recent report by a UK think-tank.

The pirates who seized the Sirius Star are a sophisticated group with contacts in Dubai and neighbouring countries, says the BBC Somali Service’s Yusuf Garaad.

Much of their ransom money from previous hijackings has been used to buy new boats and weapons as well as develop a network across the Horn of Africa, he adds.

The hijackings off the coast of East Africa and the Gulf of Aden – an area of more than 1m sq miles (2.6m sq km) – make up one-third of all global piracy incidents this year, according the International Maritime Board.

Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991 and has suffered continuing civil strife.

Shipping companies are now weighing up the risks of using the short-cut route to Europe via the Suez canal.

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