Pirates who seized oil tanker anchor off Somalia

[November 18, 2008]  MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Pirates who seized a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million in crude oil anchored the ship within sight of impoverished Somali fishing villages Tuesday, while the U.S. and other naval forces decided -- for now -- against intervention.

Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that it will join the international fight against piracy, and Somali officials vowed to try to rescue the hijacked Saudi oil supertanker by force if necessary.

But with few other options, shipowners in past piracy cases have ended up paying ransoms for their ships, cargos and crew.

NATO said it would not divert any of its three warships from the Gulf of Aden and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet also said it did not expect to send ships to try to intercept the MV Sirius Star. The tanker was seized over the weekend about 450 nautical miles off the Kenyan coast, the latest in a surge of pirate attacks this year.

Never before have Somali pirates seized such a giant ship so far out to sea -- and never a vessel so large.

Abdullkadir Musa, the deputy sea port minister in northern Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, said that if the ship tries to anchor anywhere near Eyl -- where the U.S. said it was heading -- then his forces will rescue it.

But the ship was anchored Tuesday in Harardhere, a pirate stronghold some 265 miles by land from Eyl.

Somalis on shore were stunned by the gigantic vessel -- as long as an aircraft carrier at 1,080 feet -- as it passed just off the coast on route to Eyl.

"As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore," said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman near Harardhere, a pirate stronghold where the ship apparently anchored overnight, some 265 miles by land from Eyl.

"I have been fishing here for three decades, but I have never seen a ship 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 ship, which they can see with their naked eyes."

He said two small boats floated out to the ship and 18 men -- presumably other pirates -- climbed aboard with ropes woven into a ladder.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on Tuesday 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, Greece, he did not elaborate on what steps, if any, the kingdom would take to better protect its vital oil tankers.

Saud said Saudi Arabia would join an international initiative against piracy in the Red Sea area, where more than 80 pirate attacks have been registered this year, although he did not say how.

It is not known if the Sirius Star had a security team on board.

Executives from Dubai-based company that owns and operates the vessel, Vela International Marine Ltd., a subsidiary of the Saudi oil company Aramco, were meeting Tuesday and were expected to make a statement later in the day.

An earlier statement from the company said the 25 crew were unharmed and that crisis teams had been set up to try to win their release and the return of the vessel.

It made no mention of a ransom or contacts with the bandits, but such companies have little choice but to pay out huge ransoms, usually totaling around $1 million, to ensure the safety of the crew and the vessel's return.

The Sirius Star's cargo is worth about $100 million at current prices, but the pirates have no 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 are focused instead on "the overall economy."

The latest in a surge of pirate hijackings highlighted the vulnerability of even very large ships and the inability of naval forces to intervene once bandits are on board.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet said Tuesday it was monitoring the situation but didn't expect to send warships to surround the vessel as it has done with a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weaponry the was seized off the Somali coast on Sept. 25 and remains in pirate hands.

"I don't anticipate any U.S. ships on station," said Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet, speaking from its headquarters in Bahrain.

He would not elaborate on how the Navy was watching the hijacked tanker.

The U.S. Navy said the hijacking took place Saturday. The statement posted on Vela's Web site said the ship was hijacked Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

Attacks by Somali pirates have surged this year as bandits have become bolder, better armed and capable of operating hundreds of miles from shore.

A coalition of warships from eight nations, as well as from NATO and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, is patrolling a critical zone in the Gulf of Aden leading to and from the Suez Canal. That's where most of the more than 80 attacks this year have occurred.

The Saudi tanker, however, was seized far to the south of the patrolled zone, according the U.S. Navy.

"NATO's mandate is not related to interception of hijacked ships outside the patrol area," said alliance spokesman James Appathurai. "I'm not aware that there's any intention by NATO to try and intercept this ship."

Maritime security experts said they have tracked a southward spread in piracy over the last several weeks into a vast area of the Indian Ocean, noting with alarm that the area would be almost impossible to patrol.

"We are very concerned that a (ship) of this size has been hijacked. We have safety concerns, security concerns, environmental concerns," said Noel Choong, the head of the International Maritime Bureau's regional piracy center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"Of course, as long as there is no firm deterrent, pirates will continue to attack. The risk is low and returns are extremely high. You will see more and more of such attacks," he told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, British Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth said the British navy had handed over eight suspected Somali pirates to Kenyan authorities Tuesday morning. Sailors onboard the HMS Cumberland arrested the suspects, who will be tried in Kenya on Nov. 11, after they had attacked a Danish merchant vessel using a captured Yemeni ship.

Ainsworth, speaking in Nairobi, Kenya, said it showed that warships could help deter attacks.

"But we're under no illusion about the scale of the challenge presented by piracy," he said. Referring to the Sirius Star capture, he said, "taking such a large vessels so far out to sea represents a steep change in the capabilities of the pirates."

The Sirius Star's crew includes citizens of Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia. A British Foreign Office spokesman said there were at least two British nationals on board.

[Associated Press; By MOHAMED SHEIKH NOR and BARBARA SURK]

Surk contributed to this report from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP writers Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu, Somalia, and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Belgium contributed to this report.

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