Pirates who seized oil tanker anchor off Somalia

Pirates who seized oil tanker anchor off Somalia - Yahoo! News document.body.className = ‘js-enabled‘; Skip to navigation » Skip to content » U.S. Australia/Antarctica Pirates who seized oil tanker anchor off Somalia Buzz Up IM del.icio.us Yahoo! Bookmarks By MOHAMED SHEIKH NOR and BARBARA SURK, Associated Press Writer Mohamed Sheikh Nor And Barbara Surk, Associated Press Writer – 9 mins ago Pl Video: Pirates capture Saudi tanker Slideshow: Somali Pirates Pl Video: Brazen Act Pl Video: Sirius Star Oil Tanker AP – This undated picture made at an unknown location shows the the MV Sirius Star a Saudi oil supertanker …

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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.

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

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.

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.

___

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. Recommend Buzz Up IM del.icio.us Yahoo! Bookmarks (function() { /** * YUI function to get all elements by class name * getElementsByClass */ function getElementsByClass(className, tag, root) { tag = tag || ‘*‘; root = (typeof root == ‘string‘) ? document.getElementById(root) : root || document; var nodes = [], elements = root.getElementsByTagName(tag), re = new RegExp(‘(?:^|s+)‘ + className + ‘(?:s+|$)‘); for (var i = 0, len = elements.length; i < len; ++i) { if ( re.test(elements[i].className) ) { nodes[nodes.length] = elements[i]; } } return nodes; } /** * This code displays the expand button as the page loads. This prevents any lag in displaying * the button if the page takes a long time to load. If the user clicks the button before the page * loads then we just show the full story without animation. Thus, preventing the full implementation * from loading. */ var story = document.getElementById(‘yn-story‘); var related = document.getElementById(‘yn-story-related-media‘); if ( (story && story.className.indexOf(‘read-more-toggle‘) != -1) && window.location.hash!=‘#full‘ ) { var buttonHeight = 18; var defaultHeight = 406; var heightLimit = 200; var host = document.location.host; var path = document.location.pathname; var bd = getElementsByClass(‘bd‘,‘div‘,story)[0]; // Figure out min height for story container based on the heights of the related media and primary media containers if (related) { // do height calculations if related height is larger than default minHeight if (related.offsetHeight > defaultHeight) { // if primary exists then use that height, otherwise use related var obj = getElementsByClass(‘primary-media‘,‘div‘,related)[0]; if (!obj) obj = related; // set height from primary or related container minHeight = parseInt(obj.offsetHeight, 10); // if the minheight is smaller than default, then set it to default if ( (minHeight < defaultHeight) && !document.getElementById(‘yn-story-main-media‘) && !document.getElementById(‘yn-story-minor-media‘) ) { minHeight = defaultHeight; } } else { minHeight = defaultHeight; } } else { minHeight = defaultHeight; } // add height of buttons to min height minHeight += buttonHeight; // make sure there is enough story to hide if ((bd.offsetHeight - minHeight) > heightLimit) { // set overflow and height bd.style.height = minHeight + "px"; bd.className += " overflow"; story.className += " read-closed"; // add read more expand button var div = document.createElement(‘div‘); div.className = ‘read-more read-more-expand‘; div.innerHTML = ‘Read Full Article‘; // we have to handle the case where a user might click the button before our YUI script loads // if so, remove the height and overflow setting then hide the button, also add #full hash to url so // if script eventually is loaded it doesnt recreate the buttons and collapse the story div.onclick = function(ev) { var e = ev || window.event; // show full story bd.style.height = ‘auto‘; bd.className = bd.className.replace(‘overflow‘,‘‘); story.className = story.className.replace(‘read-closed‘,‘‘); // hide the toggle button div.className += ‘ hide‘; // add #full hash to url to prevent YUI script from loading window.location.hash = ‘#full‘; // disable link follow if (e.preventDefault) { e.preventDefault(); } else { e.returnValue = false; } } // add div to document bd.appendChild(div); } } })(); More on Oil & Gas Exec says oil should return to $70-$80 range AP Reuters AP More... Video: Training concerns following subway collapse Video: Citizen spycam in Seoul Video: Hijacked oil tanker nears Somalia Most Viewed - World ‘Meh‘: Apathetic expression enters dictionary AP AP Reuters Israeli tanks move into Gaza, level farmland AP AP All Most Viewed » Most Blogged - World Somali pirates seize tanker carrying oil worth $100m Guardian Unlimited World Latest – Mon Nov 17, 4:03 pm EDT Blogs About This Story (6) Mullen: U.S. Would Need More Than 2 Years for Iraq Withdrawal washingtonpost.com - World – Mon Nov 17, 1:43 pm EDT Blogs About This Story (6) China News latest RSS headlines - China National News.com – Mon Nov 17, 8:01 pm EDT Blogs About This Story (3) Elsewhere on the Web Time.com: A Lost Masterpiece, Now Found in Tokyo's Metro McCl ABC News: Congo's Children 'Very Vulnerable' Subscribe Add headlines to your personalized My Yahoo! page (About My Yahoo! and RSS) World - AP Africa Add to My Yahoo! Business - Energy & Oil Industry Add to My Yahoo! More News Feeds » Alerts Get an alert when there are new stories about: International Maritime Bureau Somali pirates Gulf of Aden Mogadishu, Somalia merchant vessel Add Selected Alerts Also on Yahoo! News News by Region (Yahoo! Directory) Yahoo! News & Media Sites Daily Features All Comics » Opinions & Editorials: Diverse views on news from the right, left, and center. All Opinion » Photo Highlight

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