Owner of Saudi tanker working for crew‘s release

Owner of Saudi tanker working for crew‘s release - Yahoo! News document.body.className = ‘js-enabled‘; Skip to navigation » Skip to content » U.S. Australia/Antarctica Owner of Saudi tanker working for crew‘s release Buzz Up IM del.icio.us Yahoo! Bookmarks By BARBARA SURK, Associated Press Writer Barbara Surk, Associated Press Writer – 14 mins ago Pl Video: Pirates capture Saudi tanker Slideshow: Somali Pirates Pl Video: Brazen Act Pl Video: Sirius Star Oil Tanker AFP/US Navy/File – This photo provided by the US Navy shows some of the Somali pirates off of Somalia's coast in October …

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

Never before have Somali pirates seized such a giant ship so far out to sea. The Sirius Star, with a full load of 2 million barrels of oil and 25 crewmembers, was being brought Tuesday by its captors to one of the main pirate dens on the Somali coast, the port of 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.

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

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

An earlier statement from the company said the 25 crew on board the fully loaded tanker 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.

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.

"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 the presence of 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 writers Mohamed Olad Hassan Mogadishu, Somalia, and Katharine Houreld in Nairobi, Kenya, 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... Video: Ronaldo and Zidane play it out against poverty Video: Angola's oil is not just a blessing Video: Locust swarms plague Australia Most Viewed - World ‘Meh‘: Apathetic expression enters dictionary AP Reuters AP 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: Tibetans Look to Future, Without Dalai Lama McCl ABC News: Congo's Children 'Very Vulnerable' Subscribe Add headlines to your personalized My Yahoo! page (About My Yahoo! and RSS) World - AP Canada 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 Harardhere 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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