Somalis hijack Russian tanker, warship dispatched

"Any attempt to rescue the ship will certainly endanger the crew. The ship will be docked at Garacad," Abdi told Reuters by telephone, adding it was too early to talk about a ransom.

A Russian Warship has been sent to deal with this in a passive manner ?



(Reuters) - Somali pirates hijacked a Russian tanker carrying $52 million worth of crude oil and 23 crew on Wednesday, prompting Russia to send a warship to try to deal with the incident, officials said.

Pirates who hijacked the China-bound, Russian-owned MV Moscow University tanker 350 miles off the coast of Yemen warned against any rescue attempt, saying this would endanger the Russian crew.

"A Russian warship is moving toward the tanker," Russian defense ministry spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov said. The Chief of the Russian General Staff cut short a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels to coordinate the military's response, he added.

The vessel had been traveling under a Liberian flag from Sudan to the Chinese port of Nigbo with 86,000 tonnes of oil owned by Chinese refiner Unipec, a Russian shipping source said. Maritime experts said the tanker had a deadweight of 106,474 tonnes.

"The crew members locked themselves in the radar room. This ship has been hijacked," Commander Rear Admiral Jan Thornqvist of the European Union's Navfor naval force told reporters in the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

One pirate who identified himself as Abdi said the tanker was heading to a pirate haven on the coast of central Somalia.

Somali pirate killed in cargo ship hijack shooting

Nice hearing that at least one of the Somalia pirates got theirs , To bad the Yemeni Navy did not have the balls to do what the Spanish Navy did And stop the Pirates and at least sink their vessels , though I would prefer sinking them loaded with Somali Douchbags !

(Reuters) - A suspected Somali pirate was killed during shooting between pirates and armed guards on board a Panamanian-flagged ship, a maritime official and the EU anti-piracy taskforce said on Wednesday.

The private guards protecting the MV Almezaan returned fire as they beat back two attacks by the same gang off the coast of lawless Somalia on Tuesday.

Somali pirates attacked a Yemeni oil tanker off the Yemen coast on Wednesday, but the Yemeni navy foiled the assault, the defense ministry said.

Navy and coast guard vessels engaged four pirate boats that had surrounded the tanker, which was carrying crude oil to the Yemeni port of Aden, and forced them to flee, a Yemeni Defense Ministry website said.

Marauding sea gangs have attacked ships in the busy lanes in the Gulf of Aden that link Europe and Asia for several years, earning ransoms worth millions of dollars from vessels captured.

In the attack on the MV Almezaan, a patrolling Spanish warship deployed a helicopter that fired warning shots to stop the pirates as they fled the area. Spanish troops seized six individuals, recovered one body and destroyed three pirate vessels.

Somali pirates seize weapons ship, attack tanker

The Somalia pirates again reach out even farther in their attempt to takeover the waterways around the Horn of Africa !
And now they have more weapons to do it with !

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali pirates have seized a United Arab Emirates-flagged cargo ship loaded with weapons bound for the anarchic Horn of Africa nation in contravention of a U.N. arms embargo, maritime experts said Monday.

Also Monday, the gunmen launched their longest range hijack attempt yet -- opening fire on a giant Hong Kong-flagged crude oil tanker 1,000 nautical miles east of Mogadishu.

Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program told Reuters he believed the weapons ship was using a fake name. He said it had been hijacked Sunday and was now held near the northern Somali town of Garacad.

"She is one of the regular weapons carriers circumventing the U.N. arms embargo on Somalia," Mwangura said. Maritime sources say the craft is believed to be carrying light arms and ammunition, as well as rockets and rocket-propelled grenades.

"We understand the weapons belong to the Somali government," Farah, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite telephone.

Another gang member, Hassan, said the weapons ship was well known to them: "It has been circling in our ocean for a long time, bringing illegal weapons to massacre Somalis," he said.